


Delve a Little Deeper

by breizhbit



Category: Grimm (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, It translates as bloodbath for a reason dude, Poor Nick, Underage but not really, Werewolf Biology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-26
Updated: 2014-03-26
Packaged: 2018-01-17 02:40:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1370878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/breizhbit/pseuds/breizhbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Monroe's life has changed since meeting Nick Burkhardt and sharing his adventures, but one of those jaunts has had a particularly lasting effect in the form of a semi-permanent houseguest. Holly Clark is missing again, and Nick comes to Monroe to discuss it but is surprised to find out about all the loose ends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Let Down Your Hair

“Remember Holly, you’re never alone.”

Monroe snorted as he recalled the earnest sentiment behind that admittedly cheesy line. Little did he realize it actually meant he would never be alone. Ever again, apparently. Between a baby Grimm and a feral blutbad, his carefully regimented life seemed to be spiraling out of control. If it wasn’t one of them charging into his house, disrupting his pilates, it was the other, so starved for information and affection that she likely spent more time at his house than her own. 

He groaned as he woke up for the fifth time that week, his face full of brunette hair. Once Monroe’s eyes adjusted to the bright morning light, he began to take stock of the situation. Holly appeared to be draped completely on top of him with her head on his shoulder and her newly fluffy hair was in his face, up his nose, irritating his ears. A small growl escaped him before he could clamp down on the impulse. Holly’s response was disturbing, as she growled back sleepily and cuddled her face into his neck while molding her body even closer to his.

“Feral child, teenage blutbad, cute little Holly Clark, seven years old.” Monroe chanted to himself the now-familiar mantra. In his twelve-step program there had been a lot about creating mantras. “Jailbait, killing machine.” Repetition of powerful words and phrases was a great behavior deterrent. He sighed and began to extricate himself from under the girl, careful not to disturb her slumber. Monroe vaguely remembered that when he was her age he’d needed lots of sleep, and Holly had a lot of trouble sleeping. Since she’d returned to civilization, she’d improved in leaps and bounds, amazing her psychiatrists and causing undesirable speculation about her case. The first psychiatrist that had been assigned to her at the hospital had insisted that there was no way that a seven year old girl could have not only survived in the wilderness alone, but retained basic language functions for nine years. He made a bunch of noise about how someone must have been caring for her, and kept pressuring Holly to tell him who it was. She understood after some discussion with himself and Nick that she couldn’t tell him about her physical abilities or her heightened senses that let her listen to humans camping in her territory without alerting them to her presence. She listened to hear if they had food, camp stove fuel, blankets, and when they were leaving to go swimming or for a hike. Holly hadn’t spoken out loud in years when she’d responded to him in her tree house. Now, her vocabulary was almost that of a normal teenager and her reading, mathematics and basic social skills were improving in leaps and bounds. She couldn’t seem to shake the habit of dropping pronouns in her speech, but she understood just fine. However, there were lots of other problems, many of which couldn’t be discussed with speech therapists and case workers.

Along with all sorts of difficulties suppressing her instincts, Holly found it almost impossible to sleep outside of the woods. She would lie awake listening to the sounds of humans all around her, sounds that years of conditioning had taught her to associate with danger. The smells surrounding her were almost as bad. Monroe had finally gotten Nick to say something to Holly’s mother about the cleaners and air fresheners she used. Holly’s therapist said she just needed to get used to them. Thankfully, Holly’s mother seemed to go along with the idea that Holly was sensitive to them because of her lack of exposure in the woods. But even without the fake pine and scent of bleach, Holly could not sleep. 

“Feels bad,” was all she’d say about it for weeks. So Holly would show up as soon as her mother went to sleep. Often, in the first couple of months, she didn’t want to talk at all, but would just curl up next to him wherever she found him, lean into his touch, and fall into exhausted slumber. It was like being out of the woods completely drained the girl, and while she loved running in the park across the street from his house she never slept there but instead would come back in to see what he was doing, beg for dinner, and otherwise get in his way. Once her mother returned to work, Holly started showing up during the day too.

Monroe blearily made his way down to the kitchen and started the water for coffee. Lately he preferred coffee ground by hand in a pre-1920 coffee mill and made in one of his collection of art-nouveau vacuum pots. He carefully and precisely measured the beans from the neatly labeled canister in his freezer onto a scoop on the kitchen scale. They next went into the top of the metal grinder, and he thoughtfully began to turn the crank on the top, causing the beans to release their aroma as they sifted down to the drawer at the base of the simple machine.

The first time Holly had showed up at his house had been about five hours after Nick had dropped him off there and gone to reunite Holly and her mother. She climbed right through the open kitchen window where he’d been washing dishes and tackled him. She wasn’t crying exactly, just shuddering with the onslaught of emotions and changes that had come her way. Monroe could only awkwardly place his arms around her and pat her back at first, but Holly’s primal need for comfort had him tucking her head under his chin after a few minutes. He was actually a little weirded out by the rumble that automatically rolled through his chest and how effectively it seemed to soothe Holly.

Being around her was really hard, because being around her was also amazing. Blutbaden in today’s world had sublimated their instincts and become enculturated as much as humans, just in different and often more intense ways. Where he would act out in his younger years, going on hormone-fueled rampages, Holly had actually been using those impulses to keep herself alive. In many ways she was more stable, and certainly more mature, than any teenage blutbad he’d known, himself included at the top of the list. Still, there was absolutely no question that shoving her headfirst back into human society was a bad idea. Nick really had no clue what he was doing, and if he hadn’t been so goddamned quick to blab back to his work about Holly, maybe he could have kept her from suffering so much.

Reentering the human world was not just difficult for Holly, it was painful and terrifying. While her life had been hard in the woods, it had been relatively simple. Thanks to her abilities as a blutbad, she had been able to meet her subsistence needs. Now nothing felt safe and nothing smelled right, and she was forced to live with a woman who she neither knew nor trusted, and who did not understand her or what she was. Even if she did know, she would still have no idea what was best for Holly. This was why they’d decided against revealing her nature to Mrs. Clark, though Nick still thought they should tell her “soon.”

Monroe never made coffee for Holly, and he advocated strongly that she try to keep her diet as much the same as she had been eating for the past almost-decade. Blutbaden naturally needed meat and animal products and were almost universally lactose intolerant, though Monroe himself happily suffered the consequences for eggnog and other occasional treats. Vegetables were somewhat important for minerals, especially if blutbaden were eating low quality meat, but grains were a bad idea in large amounts, as they had never evolved to digest them. Poor Hap’s chronic digestive ills attested to this reality. Aside from the fact that Holly had come home with holes in her gut from that drug dealer’s shotgun, she was the healthiest blutbad he had ever seen. Her hair was glossy and thick and her teeth were even and straight. She was small and lean but incredibly fast and powerful. Transformed, she could outrun him, and he had always been one of the quicker of his brothers. 

Still, something had told Monroe to dole out enough extra beans to make an additional cup. Probably just habit at this point, he thought, though with no real malice. Sure enough, while the coffee was draining into the bottom of the vacuum pot, Detective Nick Burkhardt performed his trademark knock-and-enter-without-permission. Hopefully the idiot wouldn’t slam the door and wake Holly.

“Monroe. Good, I need your help,” Nick barreled into the kitchen, staring at the cup that Monroe held out to him silently and expectantly.

“Holly is missing.”

He said it as though ready to restrain Monroe from some crazy action. As if he would take off without knowing anything about the situation or who or what was involved. Nick really didn’t know him that well. While they’d spent a lot of time together and Monroe had had ample time to consider Nick’s personality and its strengths and flaws, it seemed the policeman-turned-Grimm hadn’t ever bothered to do the same for him, and seemed to assume he would have the same reactions as his impulsive partner on the force. Really, though, that wasn’t quite fair. Almost all the time they had spent together had been with Nick about two steps ahead of total disaster. It had been all the kid could do to keep himself from freaking out in most of the situations they’d been in, so it was not terribly surprising that he’d taken some things for granted.

Still, one of the things that made Nick such a terrible, or at least amateur, Grimm, in Monroe’s opinion, was his complete failure at effective information gathering. Not only did Nick fail to take in much from observation, he had completely bypassed countless sources of information in their adventures, preferring to exclusively learn from whatever Grimm archives he had access to from his aunt. They sure looked extensive, but maybe he hadn’t studied them very thoroughly yet. For instance, Nick had attached himself to not one but two blutbaden who hadn’t tried to kill him over the course of the past six months, and instead of making use of the situation to find out more about them he’d just taken Monroe’s help for granted and only asked questions that were directly relevant to the situation unfolding at the present moment. Consequently, most of the questions Nick asked him had to do with species he had little information about. But even when dealing with poor Hap and Angelina, the questions had only been about their specific situation. He didn’t seem interested in the larger feud between blutbaden and bauerschwein at all, brushing aside Monroe’s attempts to explain. 

It’s like the kid doesn’t think these things might be useful to know about in later life. Maybe he figures he won’t live that long, but Monroe didn’t see Nick as a depressive. In fact, he had managed to survive in several situations more due to stubbornness than to any sort of skill. If all Grimms are as lame as this one, the stories his grandmother had told him were vastly exaggerated. Still, Nick’s Aunt Marie had killed Monroe’s Grandfather Huber, and that was a feat that must have taken some doing. That old wolf was one of the meanest, nastiest, and most ancient blutbaden around, and it would take far more than your average human with a firearm to have taken him down, whether he could be truly seen or not. So far, Nick’s sight seemed to be the only really Grimm-like thing about him. No enhanced reflexes or other powers. Nick plowed through supernatural dealings with just an ability to see through to true beings and a standard issue .40 caliber revolver. 

“How long ago did her mother report her missing?” asked Monroe, pressing the coffee cup into Nick’s hand so he could get back to his own. “I assume that’s what happened,” he added.

“Just an hour ago, but Holly’s bed hadn’t been slept in. Mrs. Clark called me directly after talking to one of Holly’s doctors, and I thought I’d see if you can think of any places we should look before getting the rest of the department involved.”

Nick looked at Monroe impatiently, seeming scandalized that he wasn’t more concerned. Monroe decided to put him out of his misery, though he casually leaned on the kitchen counter first while Nick paced around by the doorway.

“She’s upstairs.”

Nick’s expression had morphed to one of confusion and surprise. Honestly, the thought hadn’t crossed his mind that she might seek out the company of the only other of her kind that she knew? This proved that Nick didn’t know that he had seen Holly outside of the times Nick brought her over and supervised her “rehabilitation” as he called it. Nick would pick Holly up at her mother’s and claim that he was taking her to see a “specialist” who was knowledgeable about the woods where Holly grew up and could help relate to her. This was close enough to the truth to work as a lie, but Monroe choked at the idea of himself as an outdoorsman. Sure, he loved the woods like all blutbaden, but his family would literally howl with laughter if they heard him described that way, since to them his persistent integration into the human world seemed unnatural and prissy. Mostly, during these afternoons every few weeks they hiked around in the park or went to a nearby nature preserve and Nick tried to get Holly to talk about her problems integrating into the human world and tried to get Monroe to offer suggestions, which he was happy to provide. Still, in all of this, Nick focused on how to turn Holly into the perfect human-seeming teenager and appease her mother in all things rather than showing any interest in Holly’s status as a blutbad.

“Here?” Nick still seemed floored, though he was starting to look a little uncomfortable. Monroe didn’t like where those thoughts might be headed.

“Holly’s just a kid and she’s having a rough time. She comes here, sometimes, after her mother falls asleep. Holly still can’t sleep in that house.”

“Even though her mother stopped using scented cleaning products?” asked Nick, with a bit of a puzzled expression.

“Look Nick, I don’t think the PineSol was ever the real problem. She’s not comfortable there. Her instincts won’t let her be comfortable there. And she certainly needs to sleep.”

“Why can she sleep here and not at home? This isn’t her tree house and it certainly isn’t the woods. I know Holly was out of society for a long time, but she needs to try to reintegrate.”

Was the guy really this dim? Monroe just shook his head. All these months he’d been hoping to avoid having a revealing conversation with the Grimm and that Nick would just draw his own conclusions, whatever they were, and keep them to himself.

“It may not be her territory, but it’s the territory of someone she knows--the only other blutbad she knows.”

“I still don’t see why she can’t get comfortable in her own home.”

“Look, Nick, I think we both know that you have very little idea about what Holly needs. I’m not much better, but at least I have some idea about what can keep her safe and healthy. You think there are easy answers to this? Finding Holly threw a real curveball in my life and now everything I’ve worked for is being tested.”

Nick’s confusion seemed to grow at this, but he stuck his chin out mulishly. “So this is suddenly about you? Well I’m sorry if saving a little girl was hard for you. But this is about her life, not yours.”

“Argh! You just have no idea!,” Monroe’s annoyance bubbled over. He wiped a hand over his eyes and took a sip of his coffee. It was superb. He went over to the cabinet by the sink and opened the door. A vast array of neatly ordered prescription drug bottles greeted him.

“Blutbaden are driven by instinct. The same instincts that kept Holly alive, healthy, and sane in the woods are the ones that keep me on all of these so that I can handle living in your world. I mostly take them for the side effects.

“This one is a depressant. This one induces extreme lethargy. This one dulls hearing sensitivity. This one, weirdly enough, promotes color blindness. This one,” He pulled out each bottle from its place on the shelf, and popped one of the pills as he went, shaking the last at Nick before taking it, “Is known for practically erasing sexual urges. So far it’s working well enough. But I have an exhausted seventeen year old girl who can only fall asleep while in physical contact with me. The reason for that is the same reason I’m on all that stuff. Her instincts won’t let her sleep until she’s safe, and as an established adult male who cared for her when she was injured, she feels safe with me.”

Nick seemed a little cowed by this performance, but collected himself and in classic Burkhardt fashion trundled on to what he saw as the next step.

“So how can we get her to feel safe at her house? Is there something she should take--”

“No! I don’t want a seventeen year old put on all this crap! She’s still growing and besides that, is she aware of the repercussions to the extent that it’s even ethical to squash her instincts? And for Holly, who is mostly instinct, if we take that away from her, what’s left? She hasn’t had time to develop much personhood in relation to society. I was raised by blutbaden, but still within the larger context of our culture. I understand what I’m doing to myself, though most of my kind still doesn’t agree with it. Certainly not my mom, who is sure that I’m slowly killing myself by trying to live this way.”

Monroe carefully replaced each of the bottles on the shelf and shut the cabinet.

“What do we do then? Regardless of all this stuff, Holly’s mother needs to know that she’s safe, and I need to take her home.”

“Don’t want to go. Not going.”

A soft voice chimed in from the hall. Holly stood there in her running pants and a t-shirt, looking as serious and formidable as he’d ever seen her.

“Great, you woke her up.” Monroe gripped his coffee cup and swallowed a mouthful, along with a powerful urge to shake Nick for coming in here and disturbing Holly. He flickered, which he almost never did accidentally anymore. Thankfully Nick didn’t notice since his full attention was on Holly in the entryway. He started talking to her in this irritatingly slow and ultracalm voice they probably trained him in at the department.

“Hi Holly, I’m glad you’re safe. We need to get you back to your Mom’s so she’ll be able to stop worrying about you. It’s really hard for parents who just want to make sure their kids are safe.”

“Safe here, not there,” Holly said, adding, “Not mother. . .adopted.” She ended this with a growl meant for Monroe which basically meant “I’ll be out front til you come and get me.”

He nodded at her in response and she ran out the front door and toward the park. It had been easier than he’d expected to get used to Holly’s language of yips, growls, and howls. He’d learned some of them from his mother when he was young, and some were used by his family when they hunted as a pack, but Holly supposedly didn’t have those sorts of social experiences with her own kind to draw on. So either she’d learned by listening to actual wolves, which was totally awesome, or the sounds and meanings were completely instinctual, as in already available to all blutbaden, which was also pretty cool. There was a third alternative though, which was not as interesting objectively, but which was vital to understanding Holly’s case.

“About that . . .Did you look up the information on Holly’s adoption?” Monroe asked.

Nick seemed to shake himself free of whatever worry he was feeling about Holly’s declaration and rallied himself to address the present question, something he did rather well. He pulled a little notepad from his jacket pocket and referred to it.

“Well, the original investigation into Holly’s disappearance notes that she was adopted when very young, and that her birth mother was an addict, but I haven’t been able to confirm either fact myself. It seems that while the adoption was aboveboard and legal, it took place with a private institution in Kansas, St. Margaret’s, so some of the paperwork is not available to us. I called them but they said the file was closed. There’s no reason to doubt our original report exactly, but I pulled Holly’s medical records, and I can’t find anything before 1999, when Holly would have been four. It’s unusual, but not that big of a sign, since it seems that’s when the Clarks moved to Portland.”

Huh. While Nick was being pretty nonchalant about the lack of facts, this seemed to support a growing theory he’d had for a while, and it seemed the time had come to get the Grimm on board. Monroe hoped he could, because without Nick it would severely limit his resources for further inquiry.

“Holly doesn’t like Mrs. Clark.” Great, very convincing. A teenage girl doesn’t like her mother.

“Monroe, that is probably the most normal thing about this situation.”

Try again.

“She doesn’t just dislike her, she really doesn’t like her. Holly doesn’t trust her. She has trouble remembering a lot before she went into the woods--everything seems to be confused somehow, but she told me that Mrs. Clark is a bad person, and after a few months of observing the situation, I’m suspicious enough to want to know why she says that.”

“There is obviously going to be stress if you’re going back to civilization after years away, and especially if Holly can’t really remember her mother, it’s natural she feels alienated,” Nick took a deep breath, as if it pained him to say the next bit, “And since she’s a blutbad, it may not be as easy for her to fit into a family. That doesn’t mean her adoptive mother is evil.”

It was so frustrating how to Nick, being blutbaden or anything else was simply an obstacle to be overcome. He didn’t seem to really grasp the differences. Though maybe that was his fault, for being the first Nick really knew, and being such a human culture conformist. Still, Nick needed to get outside his assumptions and listen.

“There aren’t any pictures of them,” Monroe blurted.

“What?”

“Before she’s three or four, there aren’t any pictures of her with Mrs. Clark or her husband. But there are pictures of Holly when she’s a baby. Holly thinks one of them is her with her mother, her real mother.”

“But how could that be? If Mrs. Clark had pictures of Holly from before she was adopted, that would mean. . .”

“Something very bad. Look, Nick, there are some other things that make Mrs. Clark’s story pretty unlikely. She said Holly’s mother was an addict who gave her up for adoption when she was born. I have no doubt that her mother was addicted to something, since she was blutbaden, even if it was just the full moon rush, but heroin? cocaine? meth? They all don’t have the same effects on us. In fact,” Monroe paused, stopping himself just short of telling Nick how poisonous cocaine was to blutbaden. Sure he liked the guy, but he didn’t want to give him--or worse, other Grimm--a weapon that could so easily be wielded against his kind.

“Well, you probably don’t need to know what I was about to say, but the point is: not likely an addict in the human sense. The other thing is that blutbaden don’t give up children. We aren’t quite on the brink of extinction, but we aren’t exactly populous either. Due mostly to Grimms and our own recklessness, but we have a low birthrate too. There aren’t that many females, and they can only have children at certain times. They always know when they’re fertile, and if they want to get pregnant they always find a male to take care of them and their children. Children are a precious gift.”

He’d heard the adults around him say that a thousand times growing up, but it never quite sank in until now. Monroe knew growing up with so many more impressive brothers that while he might find female companionship from time to time, it was unlikely that he would ever be chosen to father children. It had never really bothered him, but now that he had exclusive access to a female, however young, the thoughts wouldn’t leave him alone. He shook it off. Holly was the precious child they were talking about at the moment.

“Even if something bad happened to Holly’s parents, it’s almost unthinkable that one or the other of them wouldn’t have been from a clan. There would be grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, great-great aunts-in-law, you name it, ready and willing to raise the baby. Something had to have been going on.”

Nick took in this information for a minute. “If blutbaden die frequently as a result of their bad choices, why are you so sure that every single child would have such a large extended family? I’m sure there are some only children whose parents are already passed on.”

Monroe smiled slightly.

“That’s a pretty safe assumption, if you’re talking about human families. However, for blutbaden, having children like septuples your chances of survival or something. Different instincts kick in, or maybe you just finally have something to do with them. Anyway, most parents aren’t going to do anything to endanger their lives since they have a bunch of crazy wild children who need them.”

Nick thought some more, and tentatively said, “Not to bring up a sore point but, didn’t my aunt uh, hunt your grandfather?”

So Nick had been listening when he’d said that.

“Yeah, but the old wolf was like a bazillion or something. He had to have been halfway senile.”

Nick looked skeptical at this. “It’s hard to imagine my Aunt Marie hunting down a harmless old man.”

Monroe snorted. “He was hardly harmless. And not exactly decrepit either.”

“But you just said he was really old.”

Ahhh, so they were finally getting to this issue. Hopefully Nick’s reaction would be as amusing as Monroe had always imagined. Maybe Nick already knew, but Monroe couldn’t help but get a little bit excited at the prospect of shocking the ridiculously level-headed Grimm. If he didn’t want to give it away though he’d have to play it cool.

“Nick, how old would you say I am?”

Nick rolled his eyes at what he saw as a non sequitur and said impatiently, “I dunno, forty?”

“Ugh, Nick, I have been told numerous times I don’t look a day over thirty-four. You don’t have to be a dick about it. But no. I was born in 1933. Next year I’ll be eighty. And that’s actually pretty young for a blutbad to be let out alone. Most of us stay close together til we’re at least a century. But Grandfather Huber was old. Like, he led a force that pushed back the Romans in one of the early invasions of what we now know as Germany.”

“Romans?” said Nick weakly. Monroe took a moment to enjoy the way his eyes had widened and his breath had caught. With Nick you didn’t get much more than that, but it was still funny to throw the straightforward cop off-balance.

“Yeah, they seemed to catch on pretty quickly and rustled up some of your people to help with their campaign. But the point is, blutbaden reach adulthood at more or less the same rate as humans, then they stay there. You have no way of knowing how old one is just by looking.”

“So Aunt Marie took down a two-thousand year old blutbad?”

“Yeah, I mean, I was pretty little when it happened. I think I was eleven or twelve, but I still remember him. Green suspenders. Lots of teeth.”

“Wait, that’s impossible! If you’re almost 80 and were eleven or twelve at the time--that was like 1944 or 45. Aunt Marie wasn’t even born yet.”

Yay, yay, yay! Monroe had hoped to be the one to break it to him, since he loved the way Nick’s stern jaw would slacken when truly shocked, but he still didn’t know how much Nick’s aunt had actually told him before kicking the bucket. Not much, apparently.

“Nick, your aunt has been killing blutbaden at least since the reign of Queen Victoria. So I’m guessing she’s more like your great- great- great- aunt or something.”

Nick turned around and walked into the living room so he could slump down in one of the chairs. Monroe came over to watch the little gears in his head turning, turning. Nick took a deep breath.

“So is Holly really seventeen?”

Bah, so Nick was just going to ignore the news that he stood to live a long time, if he could just avoid getting killed? He didn’t even bring up the fact that his aunt supposedly was dying of cancer? That was so Nick, absolutely refusing to rise to the bait if he could possibly help it. Annoying, but also kind of impressive. Monroe would just have to save his theories on that subject until Nick was ready to deal with it.

“Probably more like twenty, give or take a couple of years. I called my mom the other day to get straight with her how old we look compared to humans when we’re really young. It was hard coming up with a reason for wanting to know, but thankfully I’m sort of known in my family for asking a lot of random questions. She said that we take a few years longer than humans to ‘change teeth’ so if humans are about 7 when that happens we are more like 9 or 10, but look the same age.”

“So you’re saying that there’s a possibility that Holly was with her birth parents for as long as six years before being adopted by the Clarks? Wouldn’t she have remembered her birth parents?”

“From what she’s said, Holly does remember her birth parents, as much as a very young child can. It’s her years with the Clarks that are all fuzzy and confused.”

“So you think that the Clarks stole Holly from her parents, along with some photos, and moved her out of state. What about her abduction by Addison?”

“Well, you know how he told the papers Mrs. Clark had asked him to take Holly camping but everyone just dismissed him because he had a prior conviction as a sex offender? And you know, kept raving about how she bit him . . .”

“You mean you think he might have been telling the truth about that too?”

“Maybe. Holly still says she doesn’t remember much about that day before biting Addison and running off into the woods. But I looked up his record online, and his prior conviction had to do with a fifteen year old boy. You’re the expert on criminals, but isn’t it weird to jump to seven year old girls after that?”

Nick looked more impressed than when he’d told him about his Roman-slaying grandfather. What a guy.

“I’ll have to look into that more closely. If what you’re saying is true, do you think Holly could possibly be in danger from Mrs. Clark?”

“Well, not directly, not physically anyway.” While Nick had carefully and emphatically explained to Holly that she must never use her speed or strength to harm humans ever again, Monroe had taken her aside later and said that the caveat was unless there was nothing else she could do to protect herself from them. She could always run away, and that should be her first instinct anyway, but if she was truly backed into a corner, better to strike first than risk being shot again. And if they’d seen her face, make sure they were dead before leaving. Using claws would indicate a wild animal attack to humans, but there were Grimms out there, so it was important to use caution. Holly was especially vulnerable to humans, because she knew she shouldn’t hurt or totally avoid them, but she lacked the experience to divine their motives in approaching her.

“I would feel a lot better if you could find something that bumps her age up at least a year. Then she could choose to either stay here or go back to the woods and look for her birth family in peace. I looked up getting her emancipated, but in her circumstances I doubt a court would declare her fit. Do you think it’s a good idea to have her come out with some story about somebody taking care of her in the woods like that first doctor believed? It is completely unheard of that a feral child could so easily learn to live in civilization.”

“Maybe. I don’t really want to make up another lie surrounding this case, but if Mrs. Clark is really as suspicious as you say she is, perhaps it’s for the best that Holly stay here for a little while. I’ll tell them I know where she is and that she’s safe but that she needs a little time to herself.”

Monroe finished his rapidly cooling coffee and went to refill his cup in the kitchen. When he returned to the living room, Nick was on the phone with his partner, giving him the story about Holly and asking him to find out where their original information about her adoption came from. Now that Nick thought about it, it was highly irregular that her birth mother wasn’t the primary suspect in the abduction, but as far as Hank could tell him, she’d never even been looked for. So much about that whole case was disturbing.

When Nick hung up the phone, he turned back to Monroe seriously. 

“Is Holly staying here going to be a problem?”

Monroe knew, when he said that, Nick was not asking if her presence as a house guest would be an inconvenience. 

“Look man, she’s already practically living here. If I’ve made it this far, I see no reason why I can’t keep it up. Besides, it is really important that Holly not be totally unprotected.”

Nick looked amused, and Monroe could tell it was at his expense.

“I thought you said you’d be no match for her?”

How annoying, to bring that up. 

“That’s true, as far as it goes. Holly can take care of herself, if it means clamping her jaws around the threat and shaking. But other blutbaden are going to come sniffing around eventually, and it’s better for Holly if they can tell without asking that she’s not alone. Unclaimed females are trouble. Just look at Angelina, running back and forth across the country, getting everybody’s hopes up, but never picking anyone. No one knows if she just doesn’t want children yet, or if she can’t have them, but still she breaks a lot of hearts.”

Nick looked skeptical and uncomfortable again. 

“You claimed Holly? Do I even want to know?”

“Relax. Just by being in close contact over an extended period of time she gets enough of my scent on her that any blutbaden who are close enough to bother her can tell she doesn’t sleep alone. It’s not even necessarily a romantic thing; if they were thinking about grabbing her, they’ll know she has a connection to somebody who would do something about it.”

Nick’s eyebrows raised.

“You would do something about it?”

He didn’t have to sound so incredulous about it. Monroe had done loads of crazy stuff with and for Nick, so it shouldn’t seem so odd that he could potentially deal with his own kind.

“I may not be the scariest blutbad ever, but I’m not completely useless either. Anyway, Grimms are supposed to worry about us hurting humans. You guys have never cared at all when we start killing each other off. It’s viewed more like Christmas coming early.”

“Maybe so, but I’m still a cop.”

This guy.

“It would probably never come to that anyway. Part of the scent thing is that Holly consents to have me close. So some idiot might try to show off for her, but ultimately it’s her decision.”

“Does she know that’s what it means? Holly might inadvertently put herself in danger if she doesn’t.”

“I’m uh, pretty sure she knows.”

Again with that look of amusement at his expense.

“Does Holly have a crush?” Nick teased, smirking at Monroe’s discomfort.

He was blushing. How lame. 

“Well if it keeps her safe, and relatively happy, I don’t see the harm,” Monroe sniffed. He continued, “I know some day she’ll need to get out there and meet more people so she can make an informed decision. But she’s really young, and I’m about as safe as blutbaden come, so just leave it alone.”

Nick nodded, looking a little contrite for prying.

“So Holly can stay here for the time being. Do you have any information that might give me a place to start looking for Holly’s family. I’ll go through hospital records for 1988 on, I guess, looking for the first name Holly. If she was really six when she went with the Clarks they probably wouldn’t have tried to change her first name.”

“Good thinking, but hospital records are probably not the way to go. Blutbaden pretty much avoid hospitals in all cases, since there are some things about us that would be too unusual to pass off. Female blutbaden are pretty dedicated homebirthers, but they’d probably still have to register for a birth certificate, so you might try that instead. I wish I knew if there were any clans missing a child, but I don’t keep up with stuff like that.”

“Do you know someone who might remember a little girl gone missing? What about your mom?”

Bad idea! Monroe spluttered, “My Mom? Nick, if I call her up and ask her one more ‘hypothetical’ question this week, she is going to run down here herself and I don’t want to find out what she’ll do when she gets here. I’ll probably be married by the end of the week. That or dead for keeping this kind of secret from her.

“An unaffiliated female is kind of a big deal. Blutbaden aren’t exactly the most populous species, no thanks to your family. My mom has her own agenda, and a moral system that is, uh, not directly related to yours. Tipping her off that there might be a potential grandchild-incubator on the horizon is not wise. Not if you want Holly to have any semblance of that ‘normal’ life you keep talking about.”

“Alright, alright.” Nick held up his hands in a placating gesture. “I’ll see what I can find to throw Mrs. Clark’s story into doubt. If I can’t find anything by tonight though, Holly may need to go back and make an appearance. We’ll see how it goes. Keep me posted and let me know if anything comes up.”

Without even waiting for a nod from Monroe, Nick strode out of the house. There was a little whoosh of air behind him and then Holly’s small arms went around him and her face was pressing into his back. She pulled back from her hug, and Monroe turned around to face her. So impatient. Couldn’t she have just waited out front like she’d said?

“Your mother...interesting,” she said with a raised eyebrow and a little smirk.

“Hols were you listening?” This girl really had no concept of privacy. Really had no concept. He could not count the number of times he had explained to her that certain things were better done without certain people around, but any sort of shyness or reserve, at least around him, seemed completely foreign to her.

She nodded happily.

“For how long?”

“Whole time.”

“You said you’d be out front!”

“Was out front!”

“Out front listening!” He accused. 

She nodded again, completely untroubled by his annoyance.

“We are going to have another talk about respecting privacy young lady.” Monroe wasn’t exactly mad, more flustered, as he’d been pretty candid with Nick.

Holly silently stared back, then extended one slim finger to point to the clock on the kitchen wall. 

Monroe looked, then looked again, then backed into the living room and checked the grandfather clock there.

“Crap! I’m gonna be late for pilates class. You should have told me before!”

With that, he tore upstairs to get ready at a speed that almost impressed her. Alone in the kitchen Holly walked over to the sink and opened the cabinet to her left. Neat rows of orange bottles with white caps greeted her. She took out the rightmost bottle, opened it, and shook the contents out over the garbage disposal. She thought for a minute, then picked out the second one from the left and did the same. After replacing the bottles and shutting the cabinet, she went outside to wait in the car for Monroe. They could ride to pilates together today.


	2. Nice Tower You Have Here

Holly was in the shower after pilates class and a run through the park when Nick called Monroe. Monroe ran down to his living room to grab his phone which he’d left in its charging station on his end table. He’d made Holly wait while he took the first shower so his wet hair clung annoyingly as he mashed the phone against his face in his haste.

“Hey Nick, any news?”

Monroe chided himself for sounding so eager. Still, the sooner they could put this business with Mrs. Clark to rest, the better it would be for Holly. She’d been really quiet on the way to and from class, more like her guarded old self than the playful girl who’d been beginning to come out of her shell. Monroe knew she had plenty to think about after overhearing his conversation with Nick, but despite his attempts to draw her into a discussion about it, she’d clammed up. Hopefully she was just processing and wasn’t holding anything back about Mrs. Clark.

Monroe realized that Nick had started his report.

“I confirmed that the only source of information about Holly’s date of adoption and the story about her birth mother were from Mrs. Clark. It seems like there were a lot of leads that were never followed up on in that case,” Nick coughed weakly, and his voice sounded very tight and strained on the phone. He didn’t sound too good. 

“You okay, buddy?” Monroe asked, a little concerned. Nick had seemed fine when he was over earlier. He hadn’t smelled any sickness on him, but Monroe had been a little preoccupied with the situation regarding Holly. He felt a little bad for neglecting to ask Nick how he was doing.

“Just a headache. It came up as I was going over the files about Holly’s abduction. I’m sure it’s nothing. Now, I called up St. Margaret’s again right after I left you and tried to put the pressure on the sister working in the records office. She seemed to be weakening and said she’d look some things up, but when I called a few minutes ago there was a new woman in the office who said Sister Magda had come down with something suddenly and had to rest.”

“Frustrating,” said Monroe, “and convenient.”

“Inconvenient, I think you mean,” quipped Nick, and then immediately started coughing again.

“Dude, that is definitely not just a headache you’ve got there. Maybe you should go home and get some rest.”

“Can’t. If I don’t find something to take to my boss soon, Holly will definitely have to go back to Mrs. Clark. She’s already called me twice to ask when Holly would be back. The first time she sounded okay, but the second time it seemed like she was losing her patience. She is going to need to see Holly soon or else we’ll have even more problems. Mrs. Clark really did sound concerned about Holly though. It’s hard to imagine she’s involved in anything sinister.”

“You didn’t mention anything to her about investigating Holly’s adoption, did you?”

“No, it seemed better not to. If she’s innocent, I don’t want to trouble her, and if she’s not, well, no reason to tip our hand.”

“Good thinking. Did Hank have anything to tell you about why they never investigated Holly’s biological parents?”

“I was just asking him about that a couple of hours ago when he started throwing up. The chief sent him home to get some rest.”

“Maybe you caught what he had?”

“Maybe, but it seemed like food poisoning, and we haven’t eaten together in the past day...I hope I don’t have what he has. Ugh,” Nick shuddered at the memory of his friend embarrassingly heaving up his stomach contents all over the precinct floor. “Anyway, I don’t know of anyone else who’s sick so hopefully it’s nothing big and will pass quickly.”

“Well, take care of yourself. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll get Holly to go home around 6.”

“Okay, just let me know if you need me.”

Nick ended the call and Monroe stared at his phone for a few moments, pondering the news or rather non-news that Nick had given him. This illness going around was sure picking an inconvenient time.

Monroe put his phone down on the end table and rubbed his head. He definitely needed to talk to Holly. Looking up, he noticed her head peeping around the corner in the front hallway where she was sitting on the first stair in the hallway. This eavesdropping habit was getting annoying, but today hardly seemed the best time to get on her case about it. Not just now, when they were finally doing something about her situation.

“Are you alright with going over around six Holly?” he asked. “I know you said you didn’t want to go home, but putting in an appearance would buy us time.”

“Why?” she cocked her head to the side and stared at him, like she was trying to get the most possible out of his response, looking at his expression and his posture and gestures so that she could most effectively solve this puzzle.

“Well, Nick wouldn’t tell her where you are, so if she doesn’t see you with her own eyes she will have a right to contact other people at the police department and ask them to look for you, and they’ll probably ask Nick first off where you might be.”

“Nick would tell?” Holly looked disturbed by this. She had mostly accepted Nick as trustworthy, but there were occasions from time to time where she was forced to question his loyalty. For Holly, who had a very clear pack/not pack way of understanding social relationships, the potential loss of one of the two people she considered pack was very upsetting.

Monroe wanted to reassure her, but he also didn’t want to tell her anything untrue.

“He would have to decide whether it would help or hurt more to tell them. If he didn’t tell where you are, they might send people all over the city to look for you, and if they found you here I could get in trouble. So he might decide to tell because that would show the police that we have nothing to hide.”

Holly looked thoughtful. “Trouble because of. . .minor status?”

They had researched her situation together when Monroe had wondered about getting her emancipated, so she had learned many of the terms pertaining to that situation.

“Yes, Mrs. Clark is your legal guardian, so the police are obligated to bring you back to her if they find you.”

“Could hide,” said Holly, and Monroe knew this was true. If Holly decided to run or hide, there was little any of them could do to stop her or find her until she was ready to be found.

“You could,” he conceded. “But then Nick and I would be suspects in your disappearance and the police would get serious about investigating us.”

“Could come with me,” Holly said somewhat stubbornly.

“Hols, you know that wouldn’t be a long-term solution to our problem.” He looked at her carefully. She’d moved to crouch in the doorway to the living room, her arms hugging her knees as she looked across at him. 

“Anyway, the real reason why we should go over there is so that we don’t tip Mrs. Clark off that we are on to her. You said she makes you scared, but that you don’t think she knows that. If you run, she’ll know you’re afraid, and if she’s as bad as you say she is, that could be a problem for us.”

Holly just stared down at the floor. Then, quick as blinking, she was sitting at his feet pressed up against his knees, giving a little whine of discontent.

“True,” she admitted, and the worry and dejection in her voice made Monroe reach down to run his fingers through her wet hair without thinking about it. Holly seemed so forlorn at the idea of returning home that Monroe half wanted to tell her to forget about it-that they’d find another way. Still, nothing had happened so far in the months she had been living with Mrs. Clark, so it seemed unlikely that there would be any sort of change today. Mrs. Clark had found Holly missing before, but they had always smoothed that over with an excuse that she was taking a walk. Mrs. Clark hadn’t called the police until today, so something was a bit different. Most likely it was because Holly had neglected to toss her covers around to keep up the facade that she was sleeping there.

“Are you really worried Holly?” Monroe was concerned because Holly was concerned. She just pressed her face further into his leg.

“I’ll come with you. Or, well, follow you. I can’t go in with you, it would raise too many questions, but I’ll be right outside. You can go in, have dinner with Mrs. Clark, and then as soon as she goes to her room you can come outside and I’ll drive you home. Okay?”

Holly didn’t really respond. Monroe just sat there with her for a while, spacing out a little with his hand still buried in soft brown hair. Was it really alright for him to be getting so close to Holly? A big part of his life post-intervention was to carefully avoid situations that would force an instinctual response. If they did find Holly’s birth family, they would undoubtedly want her back, and it was going to be incredibly hard to let her go. Of course, it was to be expected that at some point Holly would have to go out to learn more about blutbaden society and probably a lot of other stuff about being a female that he had never had to think about before. Still, a growing part of him was stubbornly resistant to the idea of letting her go. This part was fed by her easy acceptance of his touch, and the unquestioning way she looked to him to help her navigate the human and wesen world. Monroe was getting a little depressed at the turn of his thoughts when Holly’s stomach rumbled. She squirmed and looked up at him sheepishly.

“I guess that’s my cue, huh?” Monroe rose and went to the kitchen to prepare lunch. Holly stretched her arms out in front of her on the floor and gave a little whine as she straightened. Then she sprang up and trotted after him to help.

Lunch was made and eaten in almost complete silence. This was nothing new for Holly, but Monroe usually kept up the conversation reasonably well on his own. Today he was feeling Holly’s unease rolling off of her in waves and wasn’t quite sure what to do about it. When there was still no sound from her while doing the washing up, Monroe decided she’d had enough time to stew.

“Holly, what’s up? You’re being ridiculously quiet, even for you.”

Holly was listlessly pushing an apple around on the counter top.

“Are you worried about tonight? About going back to Mrs. Clark’s?”

Holly’s only answer was a shift of her eyes, but it was as good as an affirmative to one who could smell the agitation coming off of her in waves.

“I’ll be right outside the whole time, Hols. Here, look,” Monroe got up and went to the junk drawer and after rummaging around for a moment or two pulled out a silver whistle. He blew it and Holly winced and gave him a dirty look at the high-pitched sound in such close quarters.

“I know,” he said, handing it to her. “but I’ll be able to hear it from outside, and humans won’t because they can’t hear anything at this frequency. Let’s make a code. You keep the whistle and every ten or fifteen minutes blow one long tone to let me know you’re there. Two long ones and I’ll be ready to go. If something really goes wrong, give three short blasts and I’ll come in and get you.”

Holly accepted the little object and looked at it carefully.

“If no whistle?”

“I’ll wait five minutes to give you another chance, then come in and find you if I don’t hear anything. I’ll be sneaky, in case there’s a mistake.”

Holly looked between the whistle and the watch on her wrist as if wondering if she could trust herself to these trinkets. The watch was a thin Tissot with a pale pink face and a band of fine metal links, which Monroe had given her for Christmas. She had grumbled about the importance that the human world placed on time and all its trappings, but Monroe had never seen her without the watch since he’d given it to her. He’d had to convince her to take it off during showers and at night though she still kept it close.

“Okay,” she said. Though she didn’t follow this with anything further, Monroe was heartened to see that she seemed to be feeling better about her return to Mrs. Clark with this plan in place. Holly crunched into her apple with something like her usual gusto for all things food-related. 

-o-o-o-

6:02 saw Monroe parked across the street and one house over from the Clarks, watching the door close on Holly and her adoptive mother. Seeing the relieved slump of Mrs. Clark’s shoulders as she’d seen Holly come walking up shook Monroe’s conviction that there was something wrong. The two had entered the house, and other than Holly’s periodic whistle blasts, Monroe had not heard or seen a thing since.

It was time to take his evening pills, but Monroe couldn’t do anything about that at the moment. In fact, he was thankful for the extra edge to his senses given by the vague fading of the numbing haze he usually spent his days in. Whether or not something was up with Mrs. Clark, tonight he had a feeling that he needed to stay alert more than he needed to block out the stimuli of the human world.

Their plan had been working well so far, and Holly had been blowing the whistle regularly every fifteen minutes for a little over two hours when Monroe got a call from Nick. 

“Hey Nick, what’s up?” 

“Just checking in to make sure Holly got back home with no trouble.”

“Yeah, so far so good,” he returned. “Holly was so worried about it that I decided to hang around outside until Mrs. Clark goes to bed and she can come back out.”

“You decided, eh?” Nick’s voice was teasing and Monroe again regretted ever implying that Holly had a crush on him.

“Uh, yeah.” That was enough of that direction of conversation. “How are you feeling, man?”

“Much better. Once I got home I felt well enough to have dinner with Juliette, and I’ve been fine ever since. Must have been something about the station.”

“Huh,” said Monroe. That sounded a little off. “Were other people sick there besides you and Hank?”

“Well, not really, but after I asked Wu to bring up a box of evidence from Holly’s case he said he started to feel queasy.”

This was ringing some sort of bell in Monroe’s head, but he couldn’t quite remember where he’d heard of something like this before. It involved a bunch of people getting violently ill, with no apparent connection, but it had been some sort of--

“Hexerei,” Monroe muttered, like a curse, which actually it usually was.

“What’s that?” Nick asked.

“Witchcraft. A spell to discourage interlopers. But it shouldn’t work on you. Grimms are supposed to be immune to witchcraft. Though they’re supposed to be a lot of things that you aren’t. . .”

“Hey thanks,” replied Nick sarcastically.

“Maybe you’ll grow into your powers or something. But tell me, do you know if any of the original officers assigned to Holly’s disappearance got sick then?”

“Um, I don’t know. I wouldn’t have thought to ask.”

“No, I mean, why would you? But if there really was a curse placed on the case or something in that evidence box, that might mean--”

Just then Monroe’s ears were assaulted by three short whistle blasts, then again and again, and then horrifyingly they stopped sharply, as if the whistle had been pulled from her lips.

“Holly’s in trouble. I’m going in, get here as quick as you can,” Monroe had already left the car and vaulted over the fence and was halfway up the side yard when he hung up on Nick and stuffed his phone in his pocket.

-o-o-o-

Inside the Clark’s house, Holly paced around in her bedroom, waiting for Mrs. Clark to go to her room for the night. She didn’t usually go to bed until nine-thirty or so, but Holly didn’t have anything better to do with herself at the moment. She was too tightly wound to read, and didn’t want the sound of the TV to distract her from listening to the movements of the woman downstairs. Mrs. Clark had been in the kitchen since they’d finished dinner, baking something that smelled good but strong.

“Holly sweetie, could you please come down here for a minute?” Mrs. Clark called from the dining room. “I made some pie and I’d like to have a little chat.”

Holly didn’t respond verbally, but she blew her little whistle before descending the stairs. Mrs. Clark seemed to be out of the room, so Holly took a seat in a high-backed dining chair behind a piece of apple pie that had been placed on the table. It steamed tantalizingly, but Holly had no desire to touch it. She sniffed through the fog of cinnamon and nutmeg, trying to discern where Mrs. Clark was lurking. Oddly, she couldn’t sense her at all. Not one to doubt her instincts, Holly took the whistle from her pocket and was about to raise it to her lips to blow the warning signal, when a whoosh of cold air came over her along with a horrible burning as thick silver chains descended over her arms, pinning them to her sides. The whistle fell to the floor beside her chair.

Mrs. Clark stepped into Holly’s field of vision, and beyond the tears stinging in her eyes, Holly could see something was very wrong. Where she expected to see her carefully preserved but definitely middle-aged adoptive mother, Holly saw a beautiful young woman with an olive complexion and lustrous black hair that trailed all the way to the floor. She wore a black lace dress that fell to mid-calf. In spite of the horror she felt, Holly also could not help thinking that she had never seen a more glamorous person.

“I wouldn’t struggle so much,” said the woman who used to be Mrs. Clark. “Silver burns your kind.”

Her voice was almost the same, just a little younger and more musical-sounding.

“Silver not really supposed to hurt!” Holly protested even as she felt the chains biting into her wrists. Monroe loved to go on about what parts of blutbad lore were and were not accurate. Though she wasn’t familiar with most of the theories he discussed, Holly was always eager to learn more about blutbaden.

The woman raised her perfect brows amusedly. “Not unless it’s used in conjunction with the proper spell by a witch powerful enough to back it up. Then, my dear, it’s quite effective.”

She casually brushed the dining table with her hand and it flew aside. The witch, for that was clearly what she was, stepped in front of Holly’s chair. “I thought it would be fitting for you to catch a glimpse of what you’ve done for me before we part ways.” 

One graceful hand drew a gleaming wavy keris dagger from behind her back. “Permanently this time.”

“Not alone!” cried Holly, hoping to buy some time. If she could keep the woman talking long enough, Monroe would come to see what the matter was. Sadly for Holly, while she knew that humans (and pretty much everyone she’d ever met besides herself) loved nattering on, she had no idea what to say to encourage it.

“Ah yes, your ‘specialist’. It took me a little while to find it all out. That police detective is particularly difficult to influence, but his partner is particularly easy, so I got it eventually.”

She twirled the knife carelessly in her dainty fingers and recited, “341 Parkside Ave, owned for the past six years by a watchmaker named Edward Monroe. He is known as a loner, a sort of outcast from the Bardengau-Lüneburg clan, though it seems you’ve been spending a lot of time with this Mr. Monroe, Holly. Too bad you couldn’t have just stayed in the woods, little girl. I can’t afford to have any more wolves sniffing around here. So I’m afraid you’ll have to die.”

She seemed to consider for a moment. “Though, perhaps you could still be of some use to me. For one thing, you could tell me how old this blutbad calling himself Edward Monroe is, though being ignorant as you are you probably have no idea.”

The witch sighed gustily. “I suppose I’ll just have to wait for him to come looking for you. And just in case he’s what I’m looking for, it would probably be best to keep you alive until then.”

The radiantly beautiful features twisted in malice. “However, I think it would make much more of an impression on him to find a few new features on your pretty little face.”

She raised the tip of the wicked-looking dagger toward Holly’s cheek. Holly frantically reached for the whistle that lay on the floor though the silver chains burned her mercilessly. This had happened so fast. She realized she had just blown the whistle before Mrs. Clark had called her down from her room. Monroe might not expect it again for another ten or twelve minutes.

Knowing she might not have another chance, Holly transformed as fully as she could while bound and lunged for the whistle on the floor, toppling the chair. The pain was almost unbearable, but she closed her fingers around the whistle and brought it to her lips, blowing three blasts over and over until Mrs. Clark slapped it out of her hand. 

“So he’s within earshot,” she mumbled. She patted back her long hair and turned toward the door, leaving Holly in a crumpled heap of broken chair and silver chains. The witch gripped her knife expectantly.

-o-o-o-

Monroe gathered himself for a soundless leap up to the sill of an unlit window on the second floor. This should be the guest room if he was thinking correctly. About halfway to the house he’d been close enough to tell that both Clarks were downstairs. A quick look through the open kitchen window convinced him that Mrs. Clark knew he was coming and seemed to be waiting for him, though where she got all that hair he did not know. It would be best to get in there as fast as possible, but the goal was to retrieve Holly, not to tangle with whatever Mrs. Clark had turned out to be. Monroe had seen that Holly was on the floor, bound somehow, and that she was between Mrs. Clark and the staircase. Hopefully he could grab her and leave the way he came in without nothing too serious going down.

He was able to force the window open and creep inside with no problem. He made his way to the top of the stairs, trying to see how Holly was restrained. She lay crumpled under a broken dining chair, but her arms were weighted down by glinting chains.

“Silver?” he thought, “That stuff really works?” He knew though that dealing with a hexe strong and clever enough to kidnap a blutbad child and get away with it meant he should take nothing for granted. Anything could be cursed or bespelled and he might never know. “Probably not a hand towel though,” he thought. Soundlessly he reached through the open bathroom door and grabbed a towel.

He probably wouldn’t be able to pull the chains off of Holly and get her back up the stairs before Mrs. Clark retaliated in some way. Still, he had to do what he could. Maybe the kitchen window would be a better option. He drew a calming breath. The time for planning was over. He’d just have to wing it.

Monroe transformed enough to maximize his speed, wrapped the towel around his hand, and lunged down the stairs in a single bound. He made it around the corner into the dining room and pulled the chains off of Holly before the witch turned around. The welts looked horrible from where she’d been burned, but they would heal fast enough once they got out of here.

He stepped between Holly and her adoptive mother and for the first time got a good look at her. The impractically long hair was not the only difference, but it was the most striking. She was still the same basic woman that he had known as Mrs. Clark, just young and stunningly beautiful. Her scent was still offputtingly antiseptic. Her laughter was the tinkling of wind chimes as she beheld him.

Behind him Holly had scrambled out from under the dining chair and was backing toward the stair. Monroe spared a glance to make sure she could walk, but cursed as he realized he could no longer sense the witch’s presence.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you Holly dear,” came her voice from right at his side. A look confirmed that she was there, pressing the tip of her keris to his throat. It tingled unpleasantly, and Monroe strongly suspected that it was not a mere piece of steel.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“I approve of your curiosity in this matter, blutbad. I can see why people say you’re a thinker. I want what I’ve always wanted, to be young and beautiful forever. You people caused me no end of trouble turning up here again with Holly after all these years. I had to bespell the whole neighborhood to forget my real appearance and remember only the guise of Michelle Clark. Changing back and forth on the way to and from the office has also gotten exhausting.

So right now, what I want most is for all of you to disappear and never come back. Lucky for me, that’s what’s going to happen.”

“Yet you still haven’t killed us,” Monroe ventured.

“Hmm, well, that is one thing that once done can’t be undone and there might be a small matter that you could help me with before you go.”

With that vague assurance, Monroe eased himself away from the knife slightly.

“What would that be?” he asked. “I think you’ll find I can be very cooperative.”

She smiled silkily, “I’m sure.”

Without warning, she slashed the blade across his collarbone, causing a wave of red to escape from his right shoulder to over his heart. Though the cut was shallow he gasped at the stinging pain.

She lifted the blade to her lips and licked.

“Mmm.” She closed her eyes and opened them again. “Inconclusive.”

A fierce growl behind him instructed Monroe to flatten himself to the ground as the chair Holly had been trapped beneath hurtled into the witch at blinding speed.

“The door, Holly!” he cried. 

Holly threw the front door open and they both rushed outside into the suburban night.

 

Nick had been furiously redialing Monroe’s number for the ten minutes it had taken him to get to the Clark’s neighborhood. He slowed down as he reached their development, not wanting to draw any suspicion unnecessarily. His activity here was, after all unrelated to any current cases. Nick cursed as he registered two figures passing the car at a blur, running in the opposite direction. He pulled the car around just as his ringer went off. He didn’t bother to answer, but just took a u-turn and caught them up.

“Get in!” shouted Nick while opening the passenger door. He didn’t see any signs of pursuit, but the faces of his friends and the nasty state of Monroe’s shirt told him this was no time to take chances.

“Don’t worry,” said Monroe somewhat deliriously, “It’s my blood.”

-o-o-o-

Monroe gasped in pain and both of his companions hovered helplessly over him. They’d pulled into a random motel off the highway on Monroe’s instructions. They couldn’t return to his house or Nick’s now that the witch knew about them. They’d gotten a funny little two room suite and Monroe had been half-dragged to the small room in the back before collapsing onto one of the beds crammed in the space.

“Why not closing?” Holly whined as she pulled back his shirt collar to get a better look at the cut. It was shallow enough, though he was still losing a little blood. But the disturbing thing about the wound was the angry purple-black color that the skin around it was turning.

“The knife was dipped in co--err--poison,” Monroe managed.

“What can we do?” Nick asked urgently.

“Call Rosalee--go to the shop. Extract of vervain. She’ll know how much. Ask for some Angelica in case the dagger had a spell on it. Don’t tell her that though. No explanations at all. Vervain and Angelica. Don’t let her get any more involved than that. Hexerei works in weird ways, sometimes just tied to a name. Don’t say my name or hers,” Monroe nodded to Holly.

Nick dashed off on his errand, and Monroe finally relaxed.

“Cocaine on the knife?” asked Holly. She hadn’t missed his slip-up, but he consoled himself that she’d been primed to hear it from the frequent lectures he gave her on the danger it posed. When dealing with an increasingly common substance that you could unknowingly ingest it was wise to take all available precautions.

“Yeah. Good thing too, if she’d just had us inhale it someone would be dead right now. Holly, I’m gonna pass out, but don’t worry. Nick will be back soon. Just wait for him. You’re safe,” and with that, his eyelids fell shut and he knew no more until Nick came in and forced a drink down his throat.

The detective and the young blutbad hovered in the larger room of the two room suite after dosing Monroe with vervain and applying some directly to his wound.

“Don’t worry Holly, Monroe isn’t hurt badly,” Nick said. “Once the poison is counteracted he said he’ll be fine.”

“Shouldn’t be hurt at all.”

“Mrs. Clark was apparently pretty good with that knife, Holly.”

“May be witch, but still human. Why didn’t he kill her?”

Nick shrugged. “He’s just not like that. He isn’t a fighter. This one time some lowen caught him for their blood sports, and he was on the ground when I offered to go in his place. Some people are just not cut out for physical confrontations.”

Holly shook her head. She felt herself getting angry. She tried to deepen her breaths and blink away the red bleeding into her eyes as Monroe had taught her to do. Still she spoke up,

“That’s not right. You shouldn’t say. He does so much for you.”

“I’m not trying to insult Monroe, Holly. I know he does a lot for me. In fact, I’m happy to be able to do something in return. Don’t worry so much about it. Let’s just focus on staying safe and letting Monroe recover.”

“You really think so little of him?” she asked.

Without waiting for an answer Holly went back inside the small room where Monroe was resting, propped up on a stack of pillows and blankets from the other bed. She listened carefully and realized he was no longer asleep.

“Hey Holly,” Monroe said softly, trying not to disturb his healing collar bone. “You okay?”

Holly huffed. “Not the one stabbed by poisoned blade.”

“Just sliced thankfully. But you still seem upset. You wanna talk about it?”

Though it was unlikely that she’d take him up on it, Monroe had to ask. Holly looked so worried hovering over him like she was afraid he’d fade away if she touched him. He reached out his left hand to her and gently tugged until she sat on the bed next to him. Monroe didn’t let go of her hand, even though he knew Nick would get the wrong idea if he saw it. Holly needed the comfort of touch, even if that was all he could do for her at the moment.

Suddenly, she started talking, and Monroe could instantly tell this was something she felt was important.

“You live in the city, but have a family in the north. Why leave their woods?”

To Holly, all good, happy, and peaceful things were in “the woods” and all scary and upsetting things were in “the city.” Monroe decided he would really have to take her to some small towns some day to try to force a little perspective. For now, he wasn’t quite sure how to answer her. She had asked him about his family before, but only in terms of how many of them were there, how big was their territory, and how did they hunt together. She had never asked why he was here and they were elsewhere, and Monroe wondered how long she’d been keeping this in.

“Well, we’ve talked a little bit about how I’m not exactly normal for a blutbad, right? Like how being friends with Nick is very strange, since he is a Grimm and hunts wessen who break human laws. Most blutbaden, and everybody else who’s not human too for that matter, don’t want to be hunted down for living the way they want to, according to their instincts, or traditions, or whatever. The problem is that we have a lot of advantages over humans, and it is much easier for us to hurt them than for them to hurt us, at least in a one-on-one immediate way--I don’t want to get into the environmental ramifications of the human consumer culture which is totally spiraling out of control. . .”

Holly was looking a little lost, as the cute little furrow in her forehead had deepened. 

“Er, anyway. When I was younger I thought that because I was born stronger and faster than humans, and bauerschwein, and a bunch of other types, I had a right to hurt them. Like they weren’t real people if I could easily rip them to shreds. So I did a lot of things that I feel terrible about now. My family didn’t exactly like that I did all those things, but they didn’t think I was necessarily wrong to do them. They. . .enabled a lot of my bad behavior, whether by doing bad things with me like some of my brothers, or just saying ‘boys will be boys’ like my mom and aunts. My dad was the one who finally told me I needed to get control of myself. He sent me to live in the city for a month with my great-aunt and made me vow not to get in any fights or do anything else I could get in trouble for the whole time I was there. I started watching humans, and realized that they could be bad or good just like us. It really opened my eyes, and before long I found out about a lot of others who were trying to live in human society without hurting anybody. I figured, if they could do it, I could too. Somebody recommended this program for wessen who wanted to change their relationship with humans, and I signed up. I met some people who were making huge sacrifices just to avoid hurting others. At the end of the program, they asked us to make a vow. It wasn’t mandatory, but it kinda took me by surprise, and I did it. I promised never to take another life using my abilities as a blutbad and to evaluate all my decisions with a mind to how they affect both the individuals involved and the greater good.”

Holly continued to look at him intensely. “But when Nick said to never harm, you said, ‘defend yourself first’.” Her expression grew troubled as she plaintively asked, “why for me, but not for you?”

“Hols, it’s complicated. You are still so new to everything, and haven’t had to get out there and make your own mistakes in the human world yet. Some of the things I’ve done. . .are truly unforgivable. I can’t change the past, but I don’t want to be the kind of person who does those things anymore. I don’t even want to let them happen. That’s why it was so interesting meeting Nick. A Grimm is supposed to patrol the borders of our worlds, and keep the nightmare creatures at bay. I thought if I could I would rather help him than return to being one of the threats he guards against.”

Holly nodded, although she looked troubled and he could tell she didn’t fully understand what he was talking about.

Monroe shifted on the bed and winced a little.

“For now though, could you get me a little more vervain? After that I think we all need to get some sleep.”

Holly moved to do as he requested and then came back and carefully curled up next to him on the bed, her head near his side.

“Night Hols,” he said, and Holly gave her sleepy goodnight growl in return.


	3. Witches Ways

“Are you seriously alright?” Nick asked for about the fiftieth time that morning. They were about to leave the hotel they’d been holed up at for the night, since Monroe insisted they needed to keep moving.

“Yes. Dude, for the last time, we heal fast.”

“But--”

“Yes, the knife was poisoned. That’s why I needed the vervain and why I was laid out all night. Holly, tell him I’m fine.”

Holly looked at Nick solemnly and nodded.

“Smells fine,” she said.

Nick decided to let it go if Holly was okay with Monroe being up and about. Considering how fiercely protective she’d been of him last night, this surprised Nick, but she was also incredibly practical, so perhaps it was just best to move on. “So I was thinking that the best thing to do might be for me to head back to the trailer to do a little research. I know I saw something or other about hexe in one of my aunt’s notebooks.”

“Great, we’ll help.”

Nick did not seem particularly pleased by the idea, but couldn’t deny that at this point even Holly spoke more German than he did. At this rate he might as well turn his secret Grimm archive into a wesen public library.

“Fine,” he grumbled.

The trip to the trailer was longer than Monroe would have liked, as Nick always insisted on taking a convoluted route to throw off anyone watching. The blutbad had tried to tell him that most wesen would be staying as far away from Nick as possible, but that anyone seeking him out would know his scent and not be put off by a little backtracking. A witch was even less likely to be fooled by such maneuvers, since her way of finding would only deal with where they were at the moment of her spell-casting. Where they’d been was irrelevant. 

Being reminded that he was out of his depth as a cop just made Nick testy, and by the time they finally pulled up by the vintage airstream he was in a very bad mood. Monroe offered to get started with Holly while Nick went to pick up coffee, but this seemed to be over the line for Nick. It was his archive, goddammit! He could only imagine his ancestors rolling over in their graves as he let two blutbaden loose in hundreds of years of secret Grimm documents while he went to provide them with refreshments.

“Nick,” said Monroe, already deep in an ancient tome, “I don’t even need any coffee. You’re the one who looks like heck warmed over.”

It was true, and perhaps this was what irked the detective the most. He’d been up all night, worried for his friend’s life, worried that he’d put Holly in danger by disregarding her concerns about her adoptive mother, and too afraid of drawing her into the danger to do more than text Juliette that he wouldn’t be home. Then this morning, when Holly and Monroe appeared bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, he could hardly stand to look at them.

“Fine,” he ground out. Screw his ancestors. What had they ever done for him besides place his life in danger at every turn after providing absolutely no training for dealing with the supernatural world? At least coffee would wake him up. 

By the time Nick returned, Monroe and Holly were so engrossed in their work that they hardly looked up to greet him. Holly was neatly stacking materials they’d already searched and pulling out new prospects for Monroe to investigate. She was also keeping a notebook of any pertinent information. Already there were some strange diagrams sketched on the pages annotated with occult symbols.

“How’s it going?” Nick said, offering Holly an herbal tea and Monroe a coffee, along with some breakfast food he’d gotten at the cafe. He’d thoughtfully gotten a bacon and egg sandwich for Holly, figuring he or Monroe could eat the bagel if she didn’t want it. Nick had also taken the opportunity to call in sick to work--it came as no surprise to anyone considering how he’d been feeling the day before. Nick dug into his blueberry muffin and waited for a response.

It took Monroe a minute to finish reading a passage and make a note on a separate piece of paper before saying, “Not too bad, but not too great either. This probably isn’t the best place to look for information on hexe, especially since the archives here specialize in Northern Europe, and we have no idea where this witch comes from.”

Nick started into action, finally seeing a chance to be of use. “Yeah, but there’s a shelf over here that has descriptions of wesen from other places. I found some stuff about East Asian wesen in there. They’re accounts of the travels of like my great- great- great-grandfather or someone like that.” 

Holly immediately got up to begin combing the new shelf for mentions of witches or witchcraft.

“Awesome,” said Monroe, enthusiastic about the possibility of new sources. “I wasn’t sure how useful these books would be for this situation. I mean, witches are not usually Grimm territory. They aren’t technically supernatural beasts, nor are they classed as wesen, since they all start out as humans. Still, the bad ones turn themselves into something else over time, and usually due to ingesting parts of other creatures. Wesen consider hexe as much their natural enemies as Grimms. So far any mentions of witches in here at all have been notes in passing--most often just something scrawled in the margins.”

“What about this stuff?” Nick asked, pointing to the sketches in Holly’s notebook.

“Ah-well, those are some witchcraft arrays that we found on the internet.” He somewhat guiltily held up his smartphone as if embarrassed to use such technology in the presence of authentic texts. “While I have no idea whether or not these specific ones are something this witch would use, it seemed like a good idea to learn how she might go about casting spells.”

“Did this give you some idea what to expect?” Nick asked, suddenly alert.

“Again, yes and no. She’s got to have enough personal stuff from Holly to work all kinds of spells on her and she’s got that blood from me though it may have been too messed up by the poison on her knife for her to use. Thankfully, this trailer is probably the safest place for us to be right now. Check out the designs by the doors and windows.”

Nick stood and inspected the decorative curlicues Monroe had pointed at. He’d always figured they were just supposed to add to the creepy-cool ambiance.

“Those, my friend, are some seriously potent protective wards. I was really relieved once I noticed them. With any luck the Mrs. Cl--I mean the witch-- won’t be able to reach us here at all.”

“Still, we’ll need to leave sometime,” said Nick uncomfortably. He had, after all, just been out at a popular coffee shop and not in the protective trailer.

“Yeah, but you should be safe to leave whenever you want.” Monroe swiveled in his chair and grabbed a small book off the shelf behind the desk. “It says right here that Grimm aren’t vulnerable to witchcraft. In fact, it says a lot of stuff about Grimm that you ought to know. Didn’t you read it? It was left right on top, so I’d guess unless you put it there, your aunt left it for you to find.”

“Let me see that!” Nick grabbed for the book. Now that he looked at it, it did seem familiar from his first perusal of the trailer. But, if he remembered right, the problem was--”It’s in German,” he sighed.

“Another day I could translate some for you, but I think it’s probably best if you went ahead and learned, buddy. Here, I downloaded you an app. It got great reviews!” Monroe encouragingly handed Nick his phone, which the detective took reluctantly. “German for Beginners” mocked him from the screen. Once again, Nick mentally railed at his aunt. Why hadn’t she at least prepared him for this eventuality by teaching him the language most of his sources were in? If he’d known where his future was headed he might have paid more attention in high school spanish class. Languages were just not his thing.

Everyone returned to their tasks, only stopping occasionally to eat and drink. Nick eventually left to go get some more supplies, since it seemed likely that at least Holly and Monroe would be staying at the trailer until they figured out a plan. When he returned, Monroe sent Nick home to see Juliette, and despite having talked to her a few times throughout the day he was more than ready to go see for himself that she was safe and not angry with him for staying out all night.

Holly and Monroe continued in their search for any information relevant to their problem with the witch also known as Michelle Clark. The infrequency of mentions of witches and witchcraft was frustrating, but more frustrating was how randomly the information they had found was distributed in the texts. They had to turn every page and search every drawer of index cards in the heavy wooden card catalog in order to be certain they weren’t missing anything. For a long while Monroe gave up on the information on Nick’s shelves and returned to searching online for information on witchcraft and spellcasting.

“Hello! Hey Holly, take a look at this--” Monroe handed her his iPhone opened to a library website in German of ancient spells. “It’s like a spell for youthfulness. Jugendlichkeit - youthfulness see? And one of the main ingredients is living matter from a blutbad! Though, it specifically says a 500 year old blutbad.”

“She said --’see what you did for me’ when changed looks,” Holly said, spooked at the thought.

“Holly, there’s no possible way that you could be 500 years old. You’ve grown two inches since we found you in the woods.”

“She said,” Holly declared stubbornly.

“This would explain why she wanted to know how old I was,” Monroe pondered. He spun around and got up from the desk chair, hurrying to the card catalog. “Maybe there will be an entry under ‘jugendlichkeit’--yes, there is!”

Holly quickly fetched the book referenced from the shelves behind the desk. They tensely hovered over the book while Monroe turned to the indicated page. The entry itself was pretty much a reproduction of the spell he’d already found online, but there was a folded faded piece of parchment slipped between the book’s pages that Monroe quickly but carefully unfolded, wincing as the folded creases crumbled a little under his touch. So preoccupied was he that he was taken by surprise by Holly’s sharp bark of amazement. His eyes shifted to the open page and a sketch of a woman in late 18th century garb who was unmistakably the witch that had bound Holly and cut Monroe. 

“The text is in Italian--not my best language, but I can maybe muddle through. . .”

March the Thirteenth, Year of Our Lord 1678, Venice

I have had occasion to cross paths with a most interesting but deadly creature. Her name is Octavia Corrigliano, and I met her at the salon of Segnora Bechelli. Despite rumors of dealings with beasts, she remains an enchanting young woman. I enclose a sketch I have done of her. She claims to have been able to execute a certain youthening spell which was considered useless due to the difficulty of obtaining the primary ingredient: fresh tissue from a blutbad of at least five centuries. I played the part of a witch’s servant, begging her to tell me how she accomplished this feat, but as charming as she was to me, I could not get her to answer. If she could be persuaded to share this information, she might be of use to our cause. 

The rest of the letter contained no more mention of this witch, but the description of the spell and the drawing were an amazing stroke of luck. This witch must have been famous.

“Octavia,” said Holly inscrutably.

“It would seem so,” said Monroe. “Let’s keep looking. We still don’t know why she wanted you.”

The day wore on, and Nick showed up again with take-out for dinner and an apology for not being able to stay. Monroe quickly filled him in on Octavia’s identity and promised to let him know if they came up with any ideas for dealing with her.

Monroe and Holly ate in companionable silence. Afterward, however, Monroe was feeling extremely fidgety. He paced the tiny length of the trailer a few times before Holly finally asked, “What?” at his uncharacteristic behavior.

“I dunno. I guess I just hate being cooped up in here. I mean, there’s fascinating stuff in here, but for some reason tonight I’m having trouble focusing.”

Monroe did not mention that he was pretty sure what that reason was. It had been more than 36 hours since he’d last taken any of his meds, and he was really beginning to feel it. This morning he’d just finished a long night of healing, so the sensation of restlessness wasn’t nearly so pronounced. The long day cooped up in the trailer with just Holly and her scent wasn’t helping at the moment. If he wasn’t so convinced that the only thing keeping them from being drawn to their doom by an ancient witch was the protection of the wards on the trailer he would be out of there like a shot.

He risked a glance at Holly, who was on her back on the bed. When she caught him looking, she leaned backwards over the edge, arching her back and hanging off to look him in the eye. While this sort of move was pretty standard with Holly who was unconscious of how her body might be perceived, tonight it had Monroe biting his lip hard and trying to pretend it didn’t give him a look at how Holly’s tops had filled out in the past couple of months. She was still young, painfully young, but by his kind’s standards she was old enough to find a mate, and certainly old enough to seek out sexual partners. Blutbad females traditionally had much more freedom over their bodies, as only they could tell when they were ready to have cubs. While clans would try to force betrothals, more often than not the only way to assure such things was to completely isolate the intended couple so that there were no other options for the female. Even then it frequently ended in the death of the hopeful male. Usually things were left up to the female these days, though a clan could and would go way out of it’s way to attract the attention of an unmated female on behalf of its young males. Holly was different though. As a completely unaffiliated female she would have no one to back her up. It would be possible to take advantage of her in ways no blutbad would dare take advantage of a clan female. If his mother got a hold of her, Holly might not see the light of day until she was impregnated with the children of one of her sons.

Since Holly had already expressed interest in him, Monroe would have first claim whenever Holly wanted to progress with their relationship, whether to have children or just explore. Still, in light of the rules and social norms of the modern human world it was horrifying. Horrible that he could even happily contemplate denying Holly choice. He felt like such a creep. And yet all of this was perfectly normal for blutbaden. The only thing that made his attraction to Holly bad was the lens of human culture. Considering how old Holly probably actually was, there was not a legal impediment even in the human world.

Monroe shook his head to clear it. This was going to be a long hard night. If he wasn’t able to distract himself through research, it was time to try a different tactic. He grabbed one of the cushions from the bed and sat cross-legged in half lotus position on it on the floor.

Holly yipped curiously at him.

“Just doing a little meditation. Don’t mind me.”

And with that, he began internally reciting the longest Buddhist sutras he could think of. Holly rolled her eyes and pouted her lips as she continued to laze about on the bed. It was going to be a very long night.

-o-o-

Holly couldn't understand what was happening. She'd poked her nose out of the trailer window to get some fresh air, and before she knew what was happening, the rest of her body followed, propelling itself right out of the window of the Airstream without her consent. She yipped in alarm, and Monroe immediately roused from where he had been dozing at the desk, just missing grabbing hold of Holly's foot as it left the trailer.

He was left with no choice but to leave the trailer and try to follow her. Monroe was relieved to find that there was nothing pulling him out of the trailer, but it was clear that he would have to follow anyway, as Holly seemed to be helpless against the force of the witch's spell. She was clearly fighting it—throwing her weight backwards and making sounds of struggle though her lower body was still advancing slowly but steadily. The older blutbad caught up with her and tried to grab her.

“Hold on Hols, I'll get you.” Monroe got a good grip on her shoulders and picked her up off the ground, hoping that losing contact with the surface might thwart the spell.

Holly screamed in pain. Monroe immediately dropped her, and she breathed heavily, still walking slowly forward. He matched her pace, desperately trying to think of something else to try. They had reached the edge of the trailer park and were out on the open street now. It was still early morning, but there were enough delivery trucks and early commuters that they would draw attention if they weren't careful.

“Can't stop,” Holly panted unnecessarily. “Pull is getting stronger.”

“Just relax Holly. Try to keep it slow and steady.”

Monroe stayed beside her, but was dismayed to find that Holly's pace was increasing as they went on. Faster and faster they went, Holly crossing streets and making turns without conscious thought. She seemed able to obey traffic laws at least, and Monroe was thankful for the few seconds rest they had waiting for a walk sign on a busy street.

Holly looked at him desperately. “Going to have to run,” she announced. The light turned and Holly took off. It was all Monroe could do to keep up with her, even though he could tell from the awkward way she was running that the was still trying to slow herself down. They still didn't seem to be attracting any attention, and Monroe figured that might be part of the spell. Monroe turned his head and shouted so Holly would hear him clearly.

“Just go Holly. I'll follow so I know where you're headed and as soon as I'm sure I'll call Nick. We'll come and get you, so just stall for time. Keep her talking. Tell her we know all about her—whatever it takes.”

Holly nodded and her speed increased. Monroe lagged behind, but kept her in sight as they crossed the highway and headed away from the tall buildings of downtown. Soon they'd be close to the suburbs where the witch had been living with Holly, so it seemed likely that the house was her destination. It made sense—they already knew about the house, so why show them another lair? It was also likely that the witch had spent years building up the layers of spells on the neighbors, so it was unlikely they'd notice anything out of the ordinary even if they ended up battling on the front lawn.

Monroe pulled out his phone and dialed Nick. He didn't even wait for his friend to say hello.

“Nick, she's got Holly. Meet me at the Clark house as soon as you can.”

“I’m on my way,” said Nick. “My house isn’t far, I’ll be there in under ten minutes.”

“Meet you out front,” Monroe said, and hung up so that he could return his attention to his mad dash after Holly. He hadn’t run like this in who knew how long. Maybe not since he’d left home. Heck, he wasn’t usually able to run like this—his meds kept him in a haze that made it difficult to channel his energy into a specific task like this. But there were reasons why he took them.

Monroe raced through the streets, trying to hold back his fury at Octavia. A baby-stealing witch did not deserve mercy, but Monroe knew if he was to make it though this situation with his vow to the weider wesen intact, he would have to find a way to keep his instincts from taking over. He wondered briefly if he should go home first, take his pills, and try to formulate a strategy. The witch probably wouldn’t do anything to Holly until he got there, since she would want to tie up all the loose ends. As soon as that thought emerged he had to struggle not to howl in anger at himself. There was no way he could leave Holly alone with Octavia for a second longer than necessary.

He kept running and tried not to think.

He was coming up on the development where the Clark’s house was, and still Monroe had no idea what to do when he got there. He slowed, realizing it would not be smart to bust in while he could barely breathe. The run had seriously winded him, regardless of being unmedicated. The neat, well-groomed lawns seemed to mock him with their openness. Since it was an older subdivision, the houses were a decent distance apart, leaving him very little chance of sneaking up on the witch in broad daylight, especially since she was expecting him. Still, it would be better to have some idea of what he would face. 

He stretched out his senses, trying to notice any signs of Holly’s passing. He could just barely smell her sweat in the air. It smelled of tangy fear and bitter frustration. The neighborhood was eerily still, probably the effect of some sinister spell. Hopefully the humans had merely been encouraged to sleep a little late that day, but all the windows empty of motion and cars parked in driveways just when people should be waking up and getting off to school and work was worrying. Monroe continued on, making the turns to the Clarks’ house. He paused as it came into view, the anassuming but large mid-nineties home was deathly still and quiet. Monroe stood and listened, trying to find any clues as to how to gague the situation inside. He heard the engine of Nick’s Jeep as it approached, and was certain that it was his friend by the time the vehicle entered the subdivision. Still Monroe stood, tense and silent, mind racing as his friend stopped the car and ran to him.

“Monroe!” Nick whisper-shouted at the preoccupied blutbad as he approached. “What’s going on? Is Holly inside?”  
Just then a feral shriek pierced the unnaturally stiffling air.

Monroe muttered, “Kitchen window,” and ran to it, the Grimm following behind him as fast as he could. Monroe heaved the window open, snapping the lock in the process, and Nick had enough time to catch up so that he scrambled inside just after Monroe. They had no time to catch their breath as they were immediately greeted by the melodic voice of the beautiful dark-haired woman that Monroe and Holly had encountered the night before.

“Well hello, gentlemen,” she sighed breathily. “Welcome to my home. I have been expecting you, though you’ve kept me waiting. Very inconsiderate. So I found I had to do something to get your attention.”

Holly stood next to the witch in the wide open living room, her chest heaving with fear and fury. Other than that she seemed fine—smelled fine. The air in the house was stale though, and heavy with expectation. Witchcraft was so damned confusing. Monroe wanted to move toward where Holly was standing but he hung back. He couldn’t tell what it was that had caused Holly to scream like that and didn’t want to cause it to happen again. They needed to find out what this woman wanted and then figure out how to get away from her. The two were probably directly related. 

While Monroe pondered for all he was worth, Nick had drawn his weapon and advanced further into the house until the witch--Octavia Corrigliano, he supposed--signalled for him to stop. 

“Hold it Detective. You’d better drop that gun before I get nervous and do something worse to poor sweet little Holly.” She twirled her fingers lightly and Holly fell to the ground, gasping. Nick dropped his gun to the floor, and followed the witch’s gestured instruction to kick it away from him across the tiled floor. Monroe was just barely able to contain himself as he saw Holly fall, but he needed to find out more before he could decide on a course of action. If there was any possible way to get out of this situation without bloodshed, he had to find it. He prayed there was. Monroe grabbed at the first question that might get the witch talking. 

“Why would you kidnap a blutbad child in the first place? What would be the point? You may have gotten past her parents but I bet it wasn’t easy.”

“God, is that the understatement of the century! That bitch was ready to tear through the entire city to retrieve her whelp,” Octavia laughed. 

“Still, it wasn’t so bad. I’ve completed this spell five times, and let me tell you, it’s much easier to kill the mother and use the child. I’ve done that three times now. Oh it’s no easy task, getting around a pack of adult blutbaden protecting a child. You’ve got to find a way to get the little one alone. Once you have the child, though, the others are usually quite easy to kill—they won’t risk anything happening to their precious brats. Capturing a 500 year old blutbad and extracting cells is nearly impossible, and even then it can only be done a few times. When you get hold of a child, cells from the mother will remain alive until their teeth change, only seven years for humans but up to ten for blutbaden. I was able to extract tissue from little Holly here for four and a half years, making enough potion to last a coven of witches for centuries.”

Octavia smiled brightly here and added, “Enough even, for me to use in developing a new anti-aging line of cosmetics for humans which is making me a bundle.”

“So you want as much tissue as possible...to sell.” Monroe’s mind was racing. Could he convince her that he was 500? It would be pretty obvious to another blutbad that he was nowhere near that old, but the witch might not know. Meybe he could trade himself out for Holly.

“And you want more?” he asked.

“Oh I’ve got plenty left for myself for the forseeable future, but I’ll have to find another source before I can go global. I’ve been hypothesizing that blutbaden a century or two younger might be fine for the general public who are not expecting the kind of results someone like me requires. But Holly, of course, is both too old and far too young to be of use.”

She sniffed disdainfully at the pitiful figure of Holly crumpled on the floor unable to move.

“So you’ve made it clear that you have no use for Holly,” said Monroe. “Why lure us here then, why not just let her go?”

“Let her go and come back with a clan’s worth of angry blutbaden to wreck all that I’ve worked for? Even if the two of you were so pathetically afraid that you ran far away from me you can’t pretend to be so stupid that the rest of her family would let go of a chance at vengeance. I’m building a cosmetic empire here, blutbad, and I can’t afford to get mixed up in your mangy wolf politics. A couple of dead blutbaden will come as no surprise to anybody, especially young and hormonal ones such as yourselves.”

Holly gave a wrench on the floor, trying and failing to regain control of her own body. 

“What are you doing to her?” cried Nick, disturbed by Holly’s unnatural looking contortions.

“This little bitch did so well overcoming the silver chains that I took the liberty of preparing something special for her. Trust me, she won’t be getting around this one so easily.”

Monroe noticed the angle of the witch’s body, as if she were inviting him to cross into the dining room. Though she seemed serious about killing Holly she still hadn’t made a move. What was she planning for them? She didn’t seem concerned about his approach at all though she had the night before. What could it be? The same thing that triggered Holly’s paralysis?

Thinking of the drawings they had viewed on arrays for witchcraft, Monroe looked around him as surreptitiously as he could. There! Near the baseboard halfway across the kitchen a small silver dagger was embedded in the wall. There would be more scattered around the house marking the edges of her snare, but removing one should render it useless. A blutbad probably wouldn’t be able to touch it without seriously burning himself, but Nick wouldn’t have that problem.

“Hey,” he hissed as quietly as he could while still being sure that Nick could hear him. “Don’t look. There’s a small dagger in the base of the wall six feet in front of you to your right. Count to three and pull it out.”

Nick surged forward and grabbed the tiny silver knife out as fast as he could, staying crouched on the ground in case he’d be in the way. But Monroe was still standing there by the kitchen window.

Octavia just laughed melodically.

“Very good blutbad,” she purred, “sacrificing your detective pawn to prevent yourself being caught in the spell. As you can see it wasn’t enough to release the girl, and now you’re down a human accomplice.”

“What do you mean?” asked Nick, standing now that he was relatively certain Monroe was not about to make a move.

Octavia’s dark eyes went perfectly round. “What is this? How can this be? What is he? Explain yourself at once, human!” She accompanied this command with a hand gesture that probably unleashed a spell. When Nick continued to look at her like she was crazy, the witch snarled and actually stomped her dainty little foot in anger.

“Great, Nick, just great. You couldn’t have held still for a couple of seconds to lull her into a false sense of security?” Monroe’s brain spun, trying to think of a way to turn Nick’s blunder to their advantage. He couldn’t think of one.

“Hey, you didn’t say anything about that!” he retorted to Monroe. He turned toward the witch. “I don’t know, lady. What was supposed to happen?”

He advanced a pace or two closer to the dining room thinking if nothing else he’d might get close enough to his gun to make a difference.

“Stop right there!” she screeched. “I still have the girl, and you are going to watch her die slowly and painfully.”

With a gesture, she raised Holly to her feet. The witch held up a plastic bag with a good 12 grams of a powdery white substance.

“Is that. . .?” started Nick confusedly.

“Wait,” said Monroe, even as she was pouring a generous amount into her palm. “Just wait. Don’t you want to know how old I am?”

“Not interested. Further tests on the blood from the knife told me you are far too young to be of any help whatsoever. Oh well, I’ve still got plenty of time before I need to scale up production.”

“What is that, Monroe?” Nick inquired, though in any other situation he would be certain it was time to call in narcotics.

“Poison,” he responded.

“Is that what they’re calling it these days?” she laughed, but she didn’t contradict him outright. “It must be difficult for your kind, having such a perilous substance pushed at your children on every streetcorner.”

Shit. Their leverage and any tactical advantages they might have had were swiftly disappearing.

“Holly,” Monroe yelled, praying that the spell allowed her this much control at least. “Hold your breath!”

“Nick” he spoke rapidly with forced calm, “breathing that powder will kill Holly. Can you do anything?”

Detective Burkhardt looked helplessly at the gun he’d pushed away on Octavia’s instruction. 

“No,” he admitted.

Holly was turning purple from struggling to hold her breath in the face of the paralysis spell and Octavia’s crazed laughter echoed in the kitchen. She raised her palm to her ruby lips and inhaled a breath, ready to blow the powder into the young girl’s face. Despite the spell Holly managed to give a strangled whine of such heartbreaking terror that it cut right into Monroe’s heart, forcing him into the territory of last resorts. The panic that he was feeling leeched out of him as the certainty descended that he could not leave Holly to this cruel fate. Damn the consequences, terrifying though they might be.


	4. Events After

“Oh fuck me,” Nick just barely heard Monroe mutter. He registered surprise at the language from his usually fastidious friend, but this was the last thought in his mind before a mist of red covered his sight. Nick swiped at his eyes, clearing them, in time to see a huge grey creature dropping Octavia’s limp body to the floor. It was nothing like what he’d seen so far of blutbaden. Far more wolf than man, it had knocked Holly against the far wall, and then presumably torn Octavia’s throat out. Before Nick could really register what had happened, it was shifting back into Monroe, seemingly unharmed but clothed only in the blood of the slain witch. He turned and crouched over Holly, then sagged with relief as she sat up, clearly unharmed and released from the spell that had confined her movements. He gave a relieved laugh.

He turned and saw Nick still in the kitchen, frozen in front of the island. His mouth was hanging open and he looked at Monroe a little pleadingly.

“Don’t ask me how we’re gonna cover this one up. I have no idea. Know any discreet crime scene cleanup companies?”

Nick spread his hands out as if to remind Monroe of the fine sheen of easily typable DNA that covered every surface in this room and the next.

“Dude, it translates as ‘bloodbath’ for a reason,” Monroe laughed.

“Can all wesen change like that?” Nick managed.

Monroe shook his head good-naturedly. Nick was more than a little weirded out by his friend’s apparent good mood. “Finally a good question. It depends. Some can, when we get old enough. The grandfather your aunt slayed was supposedly like the size of two city blocks or something when he finally bit it. We don’t usually go all the way, for one because even the least attuned humans definitely notice a gigantic animal coming at them, but as you can see, the lack of pants afterward can also be a problem.”

Monroe stopped suddenly. “I need to eat. Quickly. Holly, is there anything in the house you know is safe to eat? No grains or dairy. Meat would be best. Fast. Otherwise I might do something that would help with the cleanup, but that I would definitely regret in the morning.” Monroe laughed like he was joking, but his eyes bled red as he glanced at the fresh corpse on the dining room floor.

Holly looked at him a little warily and scrambled up to investigate the refrigerator. She started sifting through containers and sniffing a few.

“Sorry Nick,” he said conversationally, though he didn’t seem to be able to take his eyes off of Octavia’s remains. “I’m probably acting weird. Hormones, instincts. I’ve been off my meds for a couple days now I guess. God, I forgot how good this feels.”

“Monroe, what’s going on?”

“I broke my oath to the Weider Wesen, and even though I know there will be serious repercussions, right now I do not give a flying fuck. I don’t know what else I could have done anyway. You were out of the action since you rely on a gun,” Monroe sneered a little at the word, “and Holly was under that fucking witch’s spell. So yeah. Had to do it,” he breathed in a deep sigh of satisfaction. “If you ever wondered why wesen do the fucked up things they do, this, right here, is why. I don’t know exactly what sort of hormonal cocktail this is, but if you could synthesize it for humans they’d all be addicts in a week. Then the way would be clear for world domination. Muahaha!”

Monroe definitely sounded high. Even his evil laugh was tinged with slightly spacey jollity. Holly was piling containers of food onto the counter. There was some sort of tomato and cucumber salad, but the rest consisted of a leftover roasted chicken with one breast missing and some butcher packs of ground beef and bone-in pork chops.

Nick didn’t know if it was some Grimm sense finally asserting itself or just good old-fashioned self-preservation but he got the feeling that his friend was riding very close to the edge of something dangerous. Monroe’s eyes weren’t red anymore, but they held a manic glint that made the human in the room very nervous. Holly seemed to know better than Nick did how to act in this situation, so he tried to follow her lead best he could. She had her head down and her eyes on the ground, so he tried it too.

Monroe just laughed again good-naturedly. “Nice observation skills, buddy. Sorry you have to figure things out on the fly like this all the time, but I never really thought to have a conversation with you about etiquette in case I lost it and killed someone. Not that you didn’t already get me to kill for you,” Monroe’s jovial tone turned to an angry growl. 

“Did you know that I actually tried to guess how far away from that siegbarste a human would have to be to make the shot? Just so I could tell myself I wasn’t using my blutbad abilities. I could have easily stayed back another 200 feet if the weapon allowed it and not worried at all about being seen.” He said this conversationally enough, though Nick sensed they were dancing ever closer to a line he didn’t want to get any closer to.

“God!” he scoffed, “why have I turned into such a fucking pansy? No wonder I moved out here. My brothers would kick my ass back to the old world if they could see what I’ve turned into.”

“Not pansy, principled,” said Holly placating him. “More meat in freezer downstairs. Frozen okay?”

“Yeah, probably better for me right now. I’m feeling sort of hot,” Monroe put his hand to his head. “Nick, it’s fine if you want to go downstairs with Holly. You may not want to watch me eat this.”

Nick said nothing, but couldn’t help the worried glance he threw to the body still lying in a pool of blood. Monroe followed his gaze, but pulled his eyes back to the pile of food on the counter.

“Don’t worry, I’m okay for now. Just--don’t take too long with that frozen stuff, ok Hols?”

Nick finally moved from where he’d been standing and followed close on Holly’s heels as she descended into the basement. Despite being a witch’s cellar, the space was a surprisingly mundane jumble of old lawn furniture, water heater and furnace and canned foodstuffs. There were even some old pool toys and Barbie dolls in plastic boxes on a set of metal shelves, supposedly left from Holly’s younger days. The freezer was in the corner, and Nick hurried over to help Holly.

“Is he gonna be ok?” Nick asked nervously.

Holly raised her eyebrows and shot him a look. “Asking me?” she wondered sarcastically. Nick scolded himself. Of course Holly wouldn’t know how this all would turn out. 

“Broke big promise,” she said. “Don’t know what the price will be.” 

Holly was very afraid that the penalty for this would be something that would take Monroe away from her. While it would seem pretty hypocritical of the Weider Wesen to demand Monroe’s death, Holly wasn’t sure the option was off the table. They might send him away, which he would be sad about, but it would be okay if she could go too. She was terrified that if they found out that it was because of her that he broke his oath they would force him to promise to never see her again. Holly didn’t know what she would do without Monroe. He was her family, her pack, her tie to the blutbad world but also her future.

She shook with unshed tears. She couldn’t fall apart right now. Not with Monroe in the state he was in. She scrubbed her hands over her face and returned her attention to the freezer.

Nick saw her struggle and sympathetically reached out to touch her shoulder. Before he could make contact, Holly had darted out of his reach with wide eyes.

“Not good!” said Holly. 

“What?” Nick was taken aback. “Holly, I was just trying to show you I’m sorry for your situation--”

“Yes, but---would make him crazy.”

Nick looked at Holly as if she was the crazy one.

“Touch leaves scent,” Holly explained to him, as if he were a particularly slow child and as if the implications of her statement were completely obvious.

Nick tried to puzzle it out.

“Monroe would think I was trying to hurt you? I don’t think he’s that far gone, Holly.”

“No,” Holly gave a frustrated little growl at Nicks non-comprehension. “I shouldn’t let you touch me. Another male touch--not good. Have to kill you.”

Nick looked a little unsettled, but backed away from Holly.

“Let me know if I can help,” he said weakly as she began to sift through the contents of the freezer.

When they came back upstairs, Monroe was still naked, but was mercifully standing behind the kitchen island eating the food Holly had found in the fridge. He had gone through all the raw meat and was carefully crunching the bones on the roast chicken.

“You know,” he said conversationally, “they always say you shouldn’t eat cooked chicken bones because they’re brittle, but I’ve never had a problem. Still, all that hype does make me chew them more slowly, so maybe that’s why. . .”

While Holly restocked the counter in front of Monroe with the frozen meat from downstairs, Nick stood awkwardly and tried to avoid standing in any blood. Monroe continued to reflect on his recent experiences with creepy good humor.

“I’ve got to say though, that went pretty well. I was worried I would have lost too much speed to finish it before the dust settled, but we managed to avoid breathing any of it. Guess the Pilates has been working!”

Nick didn’t quite see the connection, so he weakly asked, “Pilates?”

“Yeah, it’s a great system. It uses the body’s strength against itself, so whatever your starting point you can incrementally gain strength and flexibility. You probably think it’s for girls and gay dudes, but consider this: when you can bench press an SUV you can’t exactly go hang out in the weight room.”

Monroe’s good mood seemed to be making him even more forthcoming than usual, and he was already one of the most talkative guys Nick knew. His head was spinning a little bit, and he wondered if all wesen were like this after killing.

“I saw you had some extra clothes in the car. Can I get some of those?”

Thankfully Nick had been driving over to the trailer to give Holly and Monroe some breakfast and some new clothes when he’d gotten Monroe’s call. 

“Just let me get them,” he said.

When Nick came back in, still using the window so he wouldn’t disturb the gore in the front room, he found Holly washing up the dishes. Monroe was carefully mopping up fingerprints and any bloody footprints that had been tracked into the kitchen. It would be obvious to the crime scene investigators what they’d done, but hopefully they wouldn’t know who’d done it. 

Holly and Monroe carefully leapt up the stairs to clean up. Holly let Monroe take the shower in the hallway bathroom while she used Mrs. Clark’s private bathroom. It was remarkably normal for a witch’s personal domain. The off-white tiles by the showerhead had a small but normal amount of mold that had been constantly beaten back by the Clorox cleaning products that made Holly’s chest hurt. She stepped out of the shower as quickly as possible, not bothering to hide signs of her shower. The humans would know she’d been here, she figured, if they had any sense at all. Wrapped in a towel, Holly padded through the hall to change in her room. She looked around the space that she’d only inhabited for a few months and felt her emotions catch up to her. So much had changed, so fast.

Holly had known her mother had to be dead. She knew it with the same instinctual part of her that knew that any cubs she might have in the future would be kidnapped only over her literally dead body. But there had still been some wishful part of her that had wondered if there could be someone waiting for her--a real blutbad mother, nothing at all like Mrs. Clark even when she’d been playing the concerned parent right after Nick and Monroe had brought her out of the woods. A high keening wail came from Holly’s mouth, and suddenly Monroe was standing right in her open doorway, looking at her like he knew exactly what she was thinking. He picked her right up and carried her out of the house where she had experienced so much misery and out to Nick’s car. His car was still parked right across the street, but he didn’t want to risk it without checking it for spells first.

As he settled her on the seat, he thought about what the best thing might be to say to her. The bloodlust had calmed enough that he felt it was safe to be alone with her for a few minutes, at least out here in public, but the hormonal haze in his head made it hard to think what to do. Thankfully (or not) the humans in the development were still MIA.

“Holly, do you want me to call my mom? She can get down here in about seven hours, and she will know what to tell you and how to take care of you and probably exactly what clan you belong to on top of all of that, but you have to be sure. Because once we open that door there’s no going back.” He smiled sadly and swiped his hand across his forehead, smelling Octavia’s blood that still clung to parts of his skin despite his quick shower and clean clothes. “You’ll be part of our family, our pack, and that will be that. You can choose me or one of my brothers,” he growled at the thought of that and realized he would happily fight them tooth and claw for the right to be with Holly. “But otherwise there will be no more choice for you. Even if we find your clan, you won’t be able to go live with your grandparents or aunts and uncles or whoever you might have waiting out there. You’re so young, and you’ve had no time to find out how things work in our world. I wanted to give you a chance to learn gradually, but I might not be able to teach you the things you really need to know.

“Nick would probably advise you to wait and think about it. And you can still do that. But when and if you ever want me to, I’ll call her and she’ll come get you wherever you are.” He laughed a little, “You can certainly count on that.”

“If--” Holly sniffled a bit, trying to get herself under control, “If she came, would I stay with you?”

“Probably not right away, Holly. Mom would probably take you back with her. Though I may not be able to stay here either, considering the broken vow. I still don’t know what punishment they’ll assign. I hope that they’ll take all the factors into account--I mean, no normal humans were involved in the entire situation, but I did do something I promised not to do, so it would be foolish to think there won’t be any consequences.”

“But you saved me!” Holly wrapped her arms around Monroe and was thrilled when he reciprocated, nuzzling his face into her neck. He inhaled deeply and then forced himself to move back, putting her at arm’s length. 

“Careful, Holly. I haven’t been taking my meds, so I don’t want to cross any lines that can’t be uncrossed. Not with you. You still have a choice.”

“Don’t want choices--want you.”

Holly surged into his arms and kissed him. She’d never done such a thing before, so it was a little clumsy, but she could tell he liked it. Everything about him was howling at the rightness of the action, but still he pulled back a second time.

Monroe shook his head to try to clear his vision and laughed a bit nervously.

“You sure don’t go easy on me Holly. Sometimes it’s hard to do the right thing.”

He took a step back. 

“Wait here for a minute Holly. I’ve got to check in with Nick.”

He shut the door, a little worried about leaving Holly alone, but convinced that away from the corpse of her kidnapper was a safer place for the girl for the time being. Nick was in the entryway, staring at his phone when Monroe opened the door.

“Hey.”

Nick just looked at him warily. Monroe cleared his throat.

“I’m doing a little better,” he said, and it was true. He still felt way too happy for a guy with such an uncertain future, but some of that might now be attributable to Holly’s strong feelings for him and not the dead witch on the floor. He nodded toward the phone in Nick’s hands.

“You gonna call this in?”

Nick continued to look dazed for a moment, then finally shook himself a little.

“I guess I have to. I mean, my car’s here, and I’m sure the neighbors can identify all of us. I just have no idea what to say.”

Monroe tried to piece it all together. He started talking as he went.

“Well, since there is no huge wild beast to blame other than me, I guess we’d have to say we arrived after the fact. But I have no idea how to explain the scene. We can hide our clothes, but things are certainly not going to add up when they start asking questions. In fact, maybe it would be best if I took Holly home. You can say you tried to stop us, but just tell the truth about how upset she is. So only you will actually have to deal with them. It may seem suspicious, but they can’t possibly suspect that you had anything to do with the death. If you can wait a little while, do. The more time that passes between her death and when you call the harder it will be for them to say for sure that we were here when it went down.”

He trailed off, and Nick wondered if he should start cleaning up.

“The coke!” exclaimed Monroe. “You can say Holly came to us with suspicions about drugs in the house, and that she came back here on her own and we followed her. I’m sure there will be questions about where she came by that quantity, so you can have some real police work to do on top of everything.”

“So it was cocaine,” Nick said.

“Yeah, now I guess you know. I would have told you, but it was sort of a conflict of interest situation. It’s been hard enough teaching Holly to recognize and avoid it. Thinking about it as a weapon in the hands of somebody out to get her. . .it’s hard.”

Nick nodded slowly. 

“I can understand that.”

He grabbed the gym bag off the floor while Monroe gathered up the shreds of his other clothes and did what he could to minimize evidence of their presence in the house. When Nick came back downstairs Monroe briefly checked him over for any signs of blood. Monroe took Nick’s gym bag, which would probably have to be burned, and headed for the door. 

“I was gonna leave my car until we could check it, but I suppose now we’ll just have to risk it.”

Monroe went outside and left Nick to make the call, knowing if anyone could remain calm under the pressure of telling an outrageous lie to the police to cover up an even more outrageous situation, it would be this guy. Monroe carefully examined the car and found a little bag of herbs and bones under the driver’s seat. He removed the hex bag carefully without actually touching it, although it was most likely just a tracking spell. Still, better safe than sorry, he thought as he tossed it into the drainage ditch on the side of the road. Monroe helped Holly across the street into his beetle even though she probably didn’t need it physically. She leaned against him heavily and seemed exhausted even though it had only been an hour or two since they’d woken up.

“Let’s go home,” he said, and Holly nodded tiredly.

-o-o-

“Did they buy it?” was Monroe’s first question for Nick when he finally called later that day. Holly had been sleeping upstairs, and Monroe had been waiting anxiously to see what the fall-out would be before placing his call to confess to the Weider Wesen. Sure, they already knew, but he would be given twenty-four hours to confess his crime before they’d come for him.

“I think so, yeah,” said Nick happily. “I thought for sure there’d be some trouble when the chief came down, but he seemed happy enough to leave it to us. Weirdly, nobody has asked to see Holly yet. I mentioned that she was probably over 18, and everyone just seemed to accept it and not ask too many questions. I guess the witch’s spell surrounding Holly’s case was still in effect. If it bled over into this one, well, that’s a lucky break for us.”

“Wow,” said Monroe. He couldn’t believe it would work out so easily. Now if only the Weider Wesen wanted to go as easy on him as the Portland PD. Maybe, just maybe, Nick could help bridge the gap.

“So,” continued Monroe after a brief pause. “That is great, but I still have to answer to the Weider Wesen for breaking my vow.”

“Monroe, I know you take that stuff seriously, but don’t you think now would be the time to keep the truth to yourself?”

Monroe sighed. “It’s not like that. I made a vow to one of the leaders of the Weider community. She will have known what the deal is since the moment I broke it. But she won’t know any of the particulars. I have 24 hours to tell her my side of the story before they start investigating on their own. It will go easier for me if I call and schedule a hearing as soon as possible. I just wanted to find out how much cover-up would be necessary for the human authorities. Thankfully it sounds like it won’t be too bad.”

“Then why do you sound so depressed about it Monroe?” asked Nick.

“Well man, this is kind of a huge deal still. Weider Wesen may care about what happens to humans, but they are notoriously hard on themselves. You remember Charlotte? She had to just sit there and force herself to ignore her hunger until she died. That’s pretty much the kind of commitment expected from these people. I’ll be lucky if they just banish me from the area. I’m sure there’s some of them on the council that’ll suggest I be executed. They probably can’t pull that off politically, considering I’m from an old family and the victim was a witch, and so only marginally human, but that won’t mean they don’t think I deserve it.”

“That’s crazy! Clearly this is a case of self-defense and the defense of a kidnapping victim.”

“Weider Wesen see ‘self-defense’ for wesen as a pathetic excuse against a human considering how impossible it is for humans to effectively defend themselves against us.”

“Still,” said Nick. “I can tell them how it was.”

“Thanks man. I’ll call you back after.”

Monroe hung up the phone and sat down at his desk. Watch and clock parts were scattered over the surface. He really needed to clean up, but he knew he would never be able to concentrate until he’d confessed. Monroe had begged and pleaded with Holly to leave him alone while he made the call. If he thought she was listening it would be just that much harder to focus on the matter at hand. After she’d promised to go for a run and had sworn that she would stay out of the house for a full hour, Monroe had run to the cabinet to take his pills. Obnoxiously, some of them were missing so his ability to concentrate was not what he would like. He’d called Nick to give himself some time to collect himself. Still, he couldn’t put this off. He dialed the number he found on a card in his wallet and took a deep calming breath.

 

-o-o-

 

“I did it,” Monroe's nerves were evident in his voice as he paced the house talking to Nick on his phone. “I explained to my sponsor, and they told me to gather testimonies for the arbitration. Do you think you could write something? I'm really not sure where these guys will come down on Grimm, but your testimony is sure to be more appealing to them than Holly's straightforward instinctual blutbad logic.”

It had been nerve-wracking, but Monroe had just let the story spill out of him. He hadn’t explained how he’d come into contact with a Grimm and his sponsor hadn’t asked. She must have already known, though he’d never been asked about it. It was kinda creepy, and made him wonder what else they knew about him.

“When do you want me to get this in?” asked Nick.

“As soon as possible. I mean, they said to expect arbitration within six weeks. They weren’t really clear on how this was going to go down, so I don’t know what to expect exactly,” Monroe knew he was babbling, but there wasn’t much he could do to stop his nervousness from spilling over.

“That’s annoying. What about Holly, how’s she holding up?”

“She’s okay—doesn’t want to make any decisions until we know what the council decides. Hold on—got another call.”

Monroe switched over before Nick had a chance to say anything. He didn’t recognize the number, but it was local, so it could be someone calling about the arbitration.

“Hello?” he queried.

A polite and competent female voice responded. “This teleconference is the initial arbitration in the case of Edward Jakob Mohn von Bardengau-Lüneburg, alias Edward Monahan, alias Eddie Monroe versus the Weider council in the matter of the oath-breaking related to the slaying of Octavia Corrigliano. It is being recorded for future wieder tribunal use and a transcription will be archived with the general wesen administration of the greater Portland area. How does the defendant plead?”

Monroe’s head spun. “Uh—guilty? To slaying? I mean, I plead self-defense or er defense of a minor? Or not a minor, but an innocent?” 

Another voice cut in. Monroe registered that it was impatient, male. “Did you break the oath, or not?”

“Oh, uh, yes.”

The line was quiet. A new voice spoke, this one female, older, very professional.

“Mr. Monroe, I am Arbiter Keeley. Before sentencing, do you wish the tribunal to consider any extenuating circumstances in this case?”

Sentencing! Monroe was not prepared for this. Everything was happening too fast.

“Yes. The victim, I mean, Octavia Corrigliano, was a five hundred year old witch, who posed immediate danger to my companions.”

“And you felt there were no alternatives to brutal violence that would have preserved them?”

“I had no other recourse in order to save Holly. The hexe was going to kill her and no amount of negotiation could change that. There was nothing that I or my human companion--”

“The Grimm,” another of the unknown voices cut in.

“—could do to deter her from killing an innocent girl.”

“A blutbad whose feral nature lead to a death just last year.” That sounded like the angry voice of the first male that Monroe was beginning to call “Mr. Cranky-pants” in his head.

The older female voice responded, “Perhaps, but there seem to be some extenuating circumstances that must influence the course of our decision making.”

The Arbiter's cool voice left Monroe in some doubt as to what circumstances the committee was interested in. There seemed to be little question that Holly's welfare and continued existence was not their primary concern. The thought made his blood boil, but he knew that human life and wesen restraint were the most important factors to this tribunal, so Holly's status as a feral blutbad completely dependent on her instincts was not going to win her any points with them. It was more likely that they were referring to Nick.

There was some quiet murmuring that Monroe couldn’t pick up even with his heightened hearing and the sound of papers shuffling.

“It is the decision of this tribunal that the accused shall remain in the greater metropolitan area and check in weekly to account for his activities and whereabouts. He shall also complete 640 hours of community service in the next two years, at which point his case will be reevaluated. All agreed?”

A moment of silence was followed by the sound of several voices assenting with a grunt or a murmur. Monroe was flummoxed. How could this be happening so quickly? 

“The accused will report to the center Monday morning at oh-eight-hundred-hours for his first session. Don’t be late.”

As soon as the line went dead, Monroe shook his head in bafflement. He’d been sure they would have banished him from their territory, at least temporarily. That was standard for them--almost a given. He’d never heard of the council confining an offender. Monroe couldn’t help but wonder what--or who--had influenced their decision. They clearly had another source, and Monroe was starting to think it had less to do with him than their friendly neighborhood Grimm.

In a daze he dialed Nick, who had since terminated his call.

“Hey, sorry for dropping your call there Nick.” Monroe tried to frame his next sentences.

“It’s ok. Was it about your case?”

“It was. I can’t believe it, it was the freaking arbitration. Already! They just passed judgment like their pants were on fire. Did you contact them?”

“What? No, I was waiting to hear from you! I wouldn’t have even known how.” Nick sounded truly shocked, and Monroe didn’t really suspect him of lying anyway.

“Well they seemed to know all about you.”

“Creepy. But what happened? What did they decide?”

Monroe shook his head, as if he still couldn’t believe it. “A slap on the wrist. I’m confined to the area until I do some community service. It’s unbelievable. I thought banishment was inevitable.”

Holly leapt out from somewhere and tackled him. “HOLLY! Ugh.” He fell to the ground with Holly yipping over him. The phone went flying. Holly nuzzled him and tightened her arms and warm happy feelings rushed through Monroe. He looked down at her and realized there were tears trailing down her face. Poor kid. 

“Okay, okay, let me up.” It had clearly been too much to ask for Holly to leave him alone. He was pretty impressed by how well she’d hidden her presence. Monroe struggled to stand up while simultaneously prying her arms from around him. He spotted the phone in the corner under his desk and pointed, trying to look remonstrative.

Holly happily retrieved it for him with no signs of remorse whatsoever. He gave her a reproving glare but couldn’t quite keep the smile off his face. She was thrilled that they could stay together, and if he was honest with himself he had to admit that he was too.

“Sorry Nick. Seems like someone can’t follow a simple direction to make herself scarce. So, what do you think? Clearly someone out there’s looking out for me, but from they talked it sounded like I was getting off because you were there and in danger.”

“Huh.” The detective seemed unwilling to speculate, and Monroe really couldn’t come up with anyone who would be able to pull strings in the wesen community. Nick cleared his throat and continued, “So is Holly ok? Does she, uh, need a place to stay?”

Nick was a good guy, but there were some things he’d probably be better off not concerning himself with. “It’s fine for her to stay here. She pretty much has been anyway, so this will mostly be us getting back to normal. If that’s what Holly wants. Is that what you want?” he feigned carelessness and turned aside to Holly. She just stared at him, her gaze tinted with shades of amusement, determination and something that stirred parts of him that were better left repressed for the time being.

“She says yes,” Monroe said. Holly smirked at him and draped herself over the armchair in the corner.

“Alright then. I guess she is technically an adult, so I’m not gonna worry about it,” managed Nick uncomfortably. “I’ll talk to you later.”

“Later,” said Monroe. He hung up his phone and rummaged around in his drawers for the charger. Holly’s gaze was burning holes into his back as he tried to decide what to say to her. 

“I’m not going to pretend I’m not glad you’re out of there,” said Monroe, without turning around. “And you can stay here as long as you want. But I think it might be a good idea if you found some other bludbaden to hang out with. Whether you want me to help you find your clan, or call my mom, or whatever, it just seems like a good idea for you to meet some others. Especially other females who are older and can teach you the things you want to know.”

He finally faced her, but refused to meet her pointed gaze. “There’s a lot out there that you have to learn to survive in this world Holly, and I’m not the best person to help you navigate it all. I can’t even keep my oaths.”

“No,” said Holly.

“What do you mean, ‘No’? I’m being serious here. You are going to have to meet other blutbaden sometime.”

“Meet them, sure. But I’m staying with you. Always.” She looked at him with this complete self-assurance that Monroe knew he’d never be able to achieve even if he chucked all his pills into the bin. Holly really was something else. She was even learning to use personal pronouns. Finally.

“But there’s so much out there—” he began. Holly held up her hand, commanding him to stay still as she rose from the chair. He backed up as she stalked toward him, but soon his back hit his elevated desk. Holly walked right up into his personal space, but did not touch him. Monroe’s hormones were screaming at him to close the distance but his common sense was pulling him back from the flame.

“Will see it. I will see it. We will see it,” she said, and kissed him. He gave in, just for a moment, and found that the moment stretched on, and on. Finally, he pulled back and gently pushed her away. Before she could get offended or depressed he put his finger on her lips. She huffed a breath at the ridiculous notion of him shushing her. 

“We’ll see,” he said, and danced around her and out of her grasp. “But now it’s time to eat. I’m still starving.” He strode into the kitchen to raid the fridge. Holly rolled her eyes and followed. She could wait. For now, normal would have to be good enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So my goal with this story was to write something that could conceivably be a one or two episode story arc (if they all decided to go in a verrrrrrry different direction.) I outlined and wrote most of this long long long ago, but didn’t actually finish filling in all the holes til now. If anybody does read it, please let me know what you think! Did it seem like a complete story arc? Were the characterizations consistent? Were you left with any questions? It’s been so long since I started this that there may well be things I totally forgot about.  
> Anyway, thanks so much for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Something that I have had going on in my head since watching episode 7. It kind of bothers me that they link episodes to fairy tales but usually don’t go very far at all with it, so I wondered what it would be like if there was a little more depth to the Rapunzel comparison.


End file.
